315. Your Staff Schedule Needs an Audit

0:00Welcome back to the Schools of Excellence podcast. Okay, so your staff is your biggest line item on your payroll, okay, in your budget. So that means that coverage and efficiency, right? The scheduling efficiency can also be the biggest leak in your school, okay? So when I see the words scheduling efficiency, most leaders are already saying, we always need extra coverage, we always need to make sure that we have enough people. And here's the thing, right? Like, I am not against having extra people. Like I actually believe that over staffing during flu season or stuff like that is an insurance policy. And I have a whole podcast episode on that. What you need to understand is you don't need extra coverage for the sake of extra coverage. You need a strategic coverage system. Okay, you don't need bodies in the building for the sake of having bodies in the building. Think about how many times you walk into a clothing store and you see five employees walking around, but when you go over to someone, no one can help you, okay?

1:00Or there are 15 registers and there are nine people at the registers, but all of them are doing something else very conveniently. And no one can help you check out your t-shirt that you came to buy, okay? Or you're standing in an airport and there are 19 kiosks and there are only four of them in usage. I'm like, why do you have 19 kiosks? Only four of them are working, right? Or I go stand in line for someone to help me check in. And again, there are six counters. There are six people standing in the counters. There's also like nine supervisors working behind them, but like no one can actually check me and they're all busy doing something else. And I'm like, aren't you here to check people in, okay? So this concept of like having people for the sake of having people, no, okay? Coverage for the sake of coverage is not strategic, okay? You can have 20 people in a building, but if no one is actually doing what they're supposed

2:01to be doing, you're leaking profit. You are a leaking profit. So we need to fix that. Okay, strategic coverage versus just coverage, okay? Now, I never ask a director, do you have enough staff? Okay, I say, do you have a system for ratio management, for break coverage, for schedule predictability? Because that's what matters. Not if you have, quote, unquote, enough staff, okay? Because the way that you fix problems is not with mandates. You create them with systems, systems create structure, and then rhythms create safety and predictability. That is how a system and a rhythm can outlive any staff member, any admin, or any short-term patch or quick fix that you put in, okay? So when I started to talk to people about scheduling efficiencies, people would say things like, we always need extra coverage.

3:01We always need to have extra staff. But again, we need to be strategic about how we actually do it, because we need better systems for scheduling efficiency, okay? Now, when we're designing the system, we cannot design the system for the person and how easy it is for the person to implement. You need to design your schedule efficiency system based on what the school needs, because your people might come and go, but your school's still gonna be standing, okay? So I had a conversation with an owner that she had all these systems, but she couldn't implement any of those SOPs, because every time someone in her admin team left, they took all the information with them, because there wasn't a real process. So she constantly had to resurrect from the dead all the systems. And so every single time someone left, she was starting over again, even though she's been in business for almost two decades, because she never had a true proper break coverage system, which to me is so basic and foundational,

4:02but it totally makes sense that the systems weren't designed in the school, they were designed for the people running the system, they weren't designed for the actual school, okay? When you're creating coverage, you need to understand that the coverage has to be for the ratios, for the peak enrollment season, for those times, so it actually makes sense and you're not insurvival, okay? Next. Let's look at a real example from a Head Start program where we were talking about scheduling overlapped and how this is like such a budget bleed, that it's like kind of a little bit scary when you think about it. So I was working with a Head Start program, and this really happens in any school. I just happened to be working with a Head Start program. They were open for 13 hours, they had six to seven, and then multiple shifts obviously in that 13 hour day. They were hemorrhaging money, okay?

5:04And so I audited their schedule, okay? Now, just so you know, by the way, they have the best accountants and bookkeepers and tax strategists that they were working with. No one was able to figure this out. They all just kept saying, you have to cut this, you have to cut that, stop doing this, stop doing that. This is why I have a love-hate relationship with accountants and bookkeepers and tax financial people because they have really good intentions, but they've never actually run schools and been in schools and like had their feet met to the fire with these real life decisions, and this is why I created and founded schools of excellence because I was tired of listening to people speak in ivory towers about how to run financials in a childcare when they've never actually run a center. And I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, you've never run a center, like you just, you don't understand, you don't know what questions to be asking for, and a childcare is just different, like it's really different, okay?

6:05So anyways, I own at the schedule of their classrooms, and I notice that every shift that they had, they had three shifts during the 13 hour day, every shift had about a 30 to 35 minute overlap, okay? So I want you to think about that for a second, okay? So you have a 30 to 35 minute overlap between shifts, so the teacher was coming in, and the other teacher was going, but there was about this 30 minute overlap, they were both billing for, okay? Teachers got paid by the hour, so on average, teachers were getting paid $16 an hour, okay? So I sat down with the owner and I said, okay, how long should a transition take, right? Like, what are the things that need to happen during the transition, right? So she made a list of things, right? There's an attendance update, there's a key incident, like any incident report, any parent communication, any supply need, a couple things like that. I'm like, okay, if you're being really, really conservative, how much time should the transition take?

7:06How much time would this switch overtake? Should I, about 10 to 15 minutes? I'm like, okay, so 10 to 15 minutes is not 35 minutes, okay? If you close that 20 minute gap across 20 teachers, how much money is that? Okay, how much money is that? Now, you could take it a calculator and run it. When you close a 20 minute daily overlap gap across 20 teachers, that is 27,733 dollars per year. That's an entire teacher salary, just by optimizing transition shifts when they're transitioning from one shift to the other shift. Okay? This is mind blowing because so many people, so many owners are listening to this and they're like,

8:08oh my God, I would love to have almost $30,000. And you think you have to go earn $30,000 through more hustle, through more great, through more enrollment or whatever it is. Now, again, enrollment's important. I'm not talking about enrollment right now. I'm talking about schedule efficiencies. And there are so many inefficiencies in your staffing schedule especially if you're open for many hours, there's going to be an overlap in shifts. Go audit that. This was a 20 minute daily overlap gap, which resulted in almost $30,000 in savings. That's a lot of money that they started to use and invest in other areas that helped their staff, that helped the owner, that helped the reputation, that helped so many things that they wanted to use it for. I'm not talking about $5, $10.

9:08As someone I'm talking about, when I talk about schedule efficiencies or any of these money leaks, this is not about closing a leak of like $5 a day or whatever it is. This is thousands and thousands of dollars that is quietly leaking in the background, that is killing your profitability. And you're here squeezing and contorting yourself and trying to figure out ways how to make more money, where to find money, it's in the money leaks. It's in the money leaks. This is a golden ticket for you. So that is the second one. Let's go to the third part of schedule efficiency. Schedule predictability is not a luxury. It's a standard. It's a leadership standard. When I was a teacher, I worked as a teacher for nine years. My schedule for nine years was $8.30 to $1.30 every single day for nine years.

10:09The only time that I didn't work that schedule was when I had a baby and I wasn't there or when I was sick. Okay, I didn't try to create a new schedule every single week. And I see school leaders allowing staff to constantly change their shifts. I wanna start leader next week. I wanna start earlier. I wanna do this. I wanna do this. That's not how schedule efficiency works. Okay, you can make a standard in your school. Candidates must commit to specific schedules. If they're not looking for weekly flexibility, they're not a fit for this role. You can create specific schedules. You can. There are people that want a predictable schedule. Now, that doesn't mean that sometimes I didn't come late or leave early for, you know, extenuating circumstances, but I don't want a different schedule every single week. I like predictability. I wanted to know what I was going to work.

11:11I didn't want a different schedule every single week. That would feel so chaotic for me. Okay, now let's talk about something else when I talk about schedule predictability. Okay, so many of you have a policy where you need to give, let's say, two weeks notice or one week notice before you're not gonna be there, right? You know, it's not like, hey, you know, I'm on the plane to Mexico, see you in two weeks, okay? People need to give advance notice. Now, the thing is, is that people give advance notice but then they change their requests or too many people put in requests at the same time and you're like, well, I can't accommodate everyone. So now it starts to get messy because you don't have proper coverage that you need because everyone's wanting time off at a specific time. So you need a system, right? What is the policy to request time off? This is part of your schedule efficiency. And if you already have one, that's great. That means you're ready on your path towards a really good efficient schedule, right? Now, so many times people say things like, you know, is it efficient and if I go in and do a break here, or is it efficient if like someone

12:11from my admin team does x, y, and z, okay? Here's the thing, okay? Is it efficient to sit and read your child a book or is it more efficient to do a load of laundry? Just ask yourself that question for a second. Is it more efficient to read your child a book before they go to sleep or in the morning or is it more efficient to run a load of laundry? Well, it depends what your priority is. It depends what's important to you, okay? So it's not about, is it efficient or is it not efficient? Okay, right? Giving a teacher a break so she can breathe, so she doesn't burn out. And maybe that admin isn't doing paperwork during that half hour or whatever it is, okay? Stop obsessing over every single, like, individual thing, right? Teachers need breaks, okay? And I want to talk about using the toilet, okay? Like teacher need, lunch breaks, actual breaks, okay? Because no human being on the planet can be with kids for hours and hours and hours on end without a break, okay? They will break down. So part of you, when you come in,

13:13you're giving a break, right? And maybe you're not efficient, but that timeframe is efficient because the teacher needs that break, okay? And when you allow every single kind of request, it becomes chaos because everyone's asking for time off and you don't know who's available when, and study you, you can't cover ratios and then you move it into higher system breakdown, okay? So when I talk about schedule efficiency in this section, you need a protocol. What happens when too many requests come in at the same time? Who approves them? What's the rhythm for reviewing them, right? You need to create schedule predictability so you don't need to be emotionally reactive when people send in requests. That's another part of schedule efficiency, okay? Next section, break coverage, right? Let's go into break coverage, which I'm gonna, I started talking about a second ago, is a culture issue, okay? Now, a big break coverage and how breaks happen, sometimes start later or get pushed out or whatever it is, right?

14:15Now, when I was a director and leader and executive director, I was a really, really, really, really rigid about the breaks. And I would never joke about the break time. I was like, this is your break time, this is when it is, because the school is an ecosystem. And if you start your break five minutes later, like you might be like whatever, it's five minutes, sweetheart. Five minutes is an entire eternity in the world of breaks, okay? In the world of breaks, every single minute is so important. So really sitting down with your team and communicating to them, why it's in the best interest of them to make sure that the break schedule is running on time, okay? Because this happens with my kids sometimes, so on Fridays they get screen time, they get iPad time. And sometimes my kids would use the iPad and then secretly they would take an extra five minutes because the other kid wasn't watching the clock or whatever, right?

15:17And I was like, it is never in your best interest to try to steal five minutes because I see everything. And you know the rules, that if you take an extra five minutes, that means next week you get five less minutes. So you took five minutes now, but next week you're gonna get 10 minutes less. And you only get 20 minutes of screen time total. So not only do they get 10 minutes, that wasn't really worth it. So you need to really communicate to your team, right? Why it's important for them to run the break schedule. I'm gonna tell you another reason, okay? Because this would happen so often and when I would do teacher workshops years ago, and I would always give this example and every teacher would like sigh in such like, oh my God, I feel see, okay? So let's say you're in a classroom and your co-teacher left for her break at 12, okay? Now she's supposed to come back at 12.30, but she comes back at 12.35, okay? Now she sees it as whatever, it's a five minute infraction,

16:17like it's five minutes that I came late. But for a teacher who's waiting in the classroom for her break, five minutes is five hours. Every minute feels like an hour when you're waiting for your break. And what happens is every minute that she's waiting, it erodes my trust in your ability to be reliable. And when a teacher doesn't trust their co-teacher, and they don't feel that they can rely on them, now you have a massive cultural breakdown in the room. Now it's not about breaks anymore, now it's about trust and culture, which leads to another whole hope of heap of other issues, right? So we need to ask ourselves, what is our break coverage system, right? What is the protocol? This is why we take breaks at this time. This is why we take a break, period, right? There are so many of you who are like, I don't need a break, I don't need to take a break. That is not an option when you work an eight hour day,

17:18or six hour day, or whatever it is. You don't get to say I'm not taking a break, I'm just working through it because I want to get paid for that time. No. You have to take a break, you get paid during your break time. You have to take a break, because what's gonna happen is you're not gonna take a break for five weeks and then you're gonna collapse. And then you're gonna start getting snippy with the kids and you're gonna start getting frustrated. And little things that used to not annoy you are gonna annoy the crap out of you. And then you're gonna start becoming toxic and gossipy to all the other teachers. And then you're eventually gonna quit and leave. And then I'm gonna think, oh, she wasn't really a good fit. When really, she just needed a freaking break every single day from the kids. Okay, I've seen this happen and play out so many times. Everyone needs a break, right? Everyone needs a break. Not an option. Not an option. You need a break coverage system. What times are the breaks? Who covers the breaks? What happens if something gets pushed?

18:21Stop asking if it's efficient to have admin cover breaks. Stop asking about all these things, right? And start looking about, it's human energy is being used inside of those classrooms. How are we making sure that everyone is being protected? Okay, last thing, emergency coverage and call outs. All right. I wanna, it's not even tough love. It's just brutally honest. Okay, if you're a director and if you're an owner and if you're regularly stepping into classrooms, you are stealing from the school. That's it, you're stealing, okay? It's not leadership. It's every single time a director has to go in and cover a class. She is stealing from the school's profitability. Absolutely stealing. Because if you needed to be in the classroom, you would be a teacher, but you are not needed in the classroom. We need teachers in the classroom. You are a director. You are a director.

19:22Your role is a director, which means when you're not doing the director role, the school is hurting financially because there's work that needs to be done that moves the school forward that you are not doing because you're in a classroom. So you're hurting the business's profitability, which is why you need emergency coverage protocols because you are not the teacher. Now it's very easy for us to just go in and get into the classroom, okay? But let me tell you something. If you thought and paused for one second before you walked into this classroom, I am stealing from the school. The business is leaking money now. I promise you you would find someone to cover that classroom. You would be really working hard on all the staff culture rhythms to make sure that you don't get short staffed so that you're not a training company profit. Because when you're not doing director level leadership work, when you're not mentoring, marketing, working on connecting with staff, coaching, staff building systems, when you're in a room, okay?

20:22Like you need a substitute pool. You need an emergency coverage protocol. You need a way to triage callouts without constantly throwing yourself into the classroom. When you don't have a system, you have a panic button, okay? And when you have a panic button, you steal from the school real money, like actual cash, okay? It's much easier to say, right? Like I'll just do it myself. It's faster if I do it myself. But if you really consider that every single time you jump into a classroom to coverage, you're saying yes to leaking profit. You're gonna think twice. You're not gonna do it. You're not gonna do it. All right, so here are your next step action items. I want you to one invite you to audit your shift overlaps, okay? Are you paying double for the same 30 minutes? Fix it. Clarify your break coverage protocol. Number three, review your emergency coverage plan. Like who do you call? What's the protocol? Is are you the protocol?

21:23It's time to change that. Thank you so much for joining us for today's episode.