Here we run through the deployment model of our schools to help leaders and staffs understand what shifts they can / should do in order to execute our model in full and to the standards we want throughout our community...
The deployment model within the organisation is for 4 X 10 hour shifts / day with a 1 hour unpaid lunch break. In this article, we have a couple of videos from our CEO regarding our operating model, what tools we can use to plan effectively and what systems we use to deliver it on an on-going basis (Google Sheets with EY Man). Here's a quick video from our founder on some of those tools and how to use them in practice:
Staff working 10 hour shifts provides us with the time both before and at the end of each day to set up and shut down the nursery, undertake compliance checks for health and safety, draft observations, have room and staff meetings together to run through policy updates and training, ensure that the nursery is clean and orderly and that we are taking inventory of materials and resources. It is not there for you to leave early - staff are required for payroll to sign out on EY Log at the end of their shift and the central team will audit reports monthly for payroll purposes to identify those who have left early so use the time effectively!
The 10 hour days also means that the staff will benefit from one day off / week, if they are doing a 40 hour / week contract, during which time they are invited to undertake further online training with the central executive via online training portals such that we can really invest in their knowledge not just on Nursery practice but on the more commercial procedural points that underpin the business. We'll be running through deployment in full detail in a subsequent article for internal use.
Requirements
School Principals should do deployment during their HR strategic focus (managers have a working timetable in the Nursery Manager Routine on Google Calendar in which afternoons are dedicated to their strategic planning) to review their deployment for the subsequent month (at least), ensuring that they are looking at the numbers of children in each room to assess how close we are getting to being fully utilised against the current staff team, which should trigger a recruitment campaign (see below and subsequent articles regarding recruitment). This should be done on Thursdays with the Ops manager.
School Principals must notify the central team, specifically the Head of Educational Operations, on slack when they're deployment modelling is complete for his / her inspection and approval, with any requests for recruitment support and / or bank staff team deployment to help buffer numbers. This should be received by no later than Thursday at 4pm every week - there is a Workast task item for this to be completed by managers on a recurring basis.
Objective:
To have perfect ratio deployment (coloured Green in EY Man) against requirement, with one full time float additional to requirement for buffer. If you are overstaffed, EY Man will show this up as blue, which means the nursery is losing money. And if you are out of ratio, EY Man will show this as red, which means you are in breach of the EYFS and our own policies and procedures. Both are bad and will be used in your own performance measurement
Recruitment Planning
Reviewing your deployment in this way, will force you to look at your recruitment needs. As you understand the structure of the team and you have clarity as to the roles you need to fill in order to deliver our programme, you should be in a position to quickly advertise for the roles that you need filled by utilising BambooHR's Hiring interface that will circulate your roles to indeed and other jobs boards. In the below video, we're going to look into how you can take your Deployment Plan and put it into practice in EY Man and then how you can recruit via Bamboo Hiring against the roles you need to fill