CHILDREN & SOCIETY VOLUME
Published online 8 April 2004 in Wiley InterScience ). DOI: 10.1002/CHI.829
Building a Stable Workforce:
Recruitment and Retention in theChild Care and Early Years Sector
The paper presents findings from research aimed at identifyingeffective approaches to the recruitment and retention of child careworkers, conducted to assist the UK Government’s ChildcareStrategy. The paper explores the practices and views of child careemployers, Early Years Development and Childcare Partnerships
(EYDCPs) and child care workers in a range of settings (includingday nurseries, playgroups and out-of-school care). Two key issuesexplored in the paper are the need for greater employer responsibilityfor increasing diversity in the child care workforce; and for a strongeremphasis on staff retention, through improved human resourcepractices in parts of the child care sector. Copyright # 2004 JohnWiley & Sons, Ltd.
Introduction
In a buoyant economy, recruiting and retaining workers canpresent particular challenges for some employers. The childcare sector has long experienced such difficulties, despite theintrinsic attractions of working in the sector and the high levelsof occupational commitment (see for example Cameron andothers, 2001a). The child care sector plays a crucial role in theeconomy by assisting women with children to work outsidethe home. Therefore problems of recruitment and retention inchild care can impact on other sectors. Indeed, concerns have
recently been expressed for the ability of the child care sectorto recruit sufficient staff to cope with rising demand for childcare from working mothers (see Wilkinson, 2002). Because
parents will have different preferences for hours of work, aswell as the sector they wish to work in and have the skills for,
a strong child care sector may be a strong influence on theirparticipation.
The UK child care and playwork sector employs an estimated
275,000 paid staff1 across a wide range of settings, including
day nurseries, pre-schools and playgroups, nursery and
Copyright # 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Heather Rolfe
National Institute of
Economic and Social Research, London
Correspondence to: Heather Rolfe,
National Institute of Economic and
Social Research, 2 Dean Trench
Street, Smith Square, London
SW1P 3HE, UK.
英国留学生论文1This figure is from the 2001 child care workforce survey (SQW/NOP, 2002) and does notcover early education settings or crches, nannies or au pairs.reception classes in schools, out of school and holiday schemes, and cre`ches. Manysettings, such as playgroups and after school care, offer only part-time employmentbecause of the length of child care sessions while others, such as day nurseries, also offerfull-time jobs. Existing research has found child care providers to experience problemsboth recruiting staff and retaining them (see for example, Cameron, 1997; SQW/NOP,2002) and recent studies suggest that such problems are increasing (see Cameron andothers, 2001b; IDS (Income Data Services), 2001). A survey of nurseries found a third ofproviders had difficulties with staff retention, and two-thirds had recruitment problems(IDS, 2001). These studies have provided valuable data on the extent of recruitment andretention problems, but more exploration was required on the reasons for thesedifficulties, including whether employers’ practices might be a factor. This requiredqualitative research to identify practices, experiences and views of employers and childcare workers.留学生论文代写网代写留学生论文,英国硕士论文,澳洲论文
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