Expanding the number of hours offers opportunities for staff shortages in childcare
To combat staff shortages, part-timers can now work more hours in childcare. It is a pilot that seems to be successful: almost one in five employees has already increased the number of hours.
Many childcare organizations have struggled for years to find employees. There are now thousands of vacancies still open. And there will be many more when the government makes childcare free in 2027.
To combat the shortage of personnel, the sector started a pilot together with the government: they offer current employees the opportunity to increase the number of hours. Half of the people who work in childcare do so less than 25 hours a week. This measure will hopefully ensure that they will work extra hours, so that new colleagues are less needed.
Childcare organization Kind & Co Ludens has discussed with their 89 part-time workers whether and how they want and can work more hours. In just three months, 17 employees have definitively increased their number of hours. On average, they now work an extra 5.5 hours per week. That number of hours is equivalent to 2.5 fte, or full-time jobs.
Regional manager Yvonne van Schaik at Kind & Co Ludens is hopeful about these results. “If we can collect this in a few months, then this is an opportunity for the childcare industry.”
Think along
The solution was not an extra bonus or more vacation days, but flexible thinking, as this pilot shows. Dominique Fonsensca is one of the part-timers who works in childcare alongside her education. She works in Weesp and wanted to work an extra morning, but that was not possible at the location where she works. It was possible in Utrecht, so she is now working there for her third day.
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In addition to Kind & Co Ludens, seventeen other childcare organizations joined this pilot. They, too, are now talking to their employees about possibly extending their hours. Jeffrey Louts, manager at Solidoe Childcare, says that more than a quarter of his staff would like to talk about extra hours.
Giant bag of money
Emmeline Bijlsma, director of the Child Care Branch Organization, also thinks the results are good and says: “We must consider everything that contributes to solving the large staff shortage.”
She does add that you cannot simply apply this to the entire sector. “For every additional full-time job, this project has cost about 100,000 euros. If you want to do this throughout the Netherlands, we need a huge bag of money.”
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Source: NU.nl
