Overstaffing in a daycare chain: how to spot it

When people in a daycare talk about staff ratios, they almost always mean understaffing. Are there enough people, can we get a substitute, can groups be combined. The other direction is left out of the conversation, even though its cost is just as real. When a unit is overstaffed, it has more staff than the number of children requires, and that costs wages every month.

Why overstaffing goes unnoticed

Understaffing produces feedback at once. Staff get tired, guardians notice, and the director hears about it the same day. Nobody complains about overstaffing. The group is calm, staff have time for everything, and the day goes well. That is how it should be.

The problem only shows when you look at the whole chain at once. In one unit the number of children has fallen over the spring, because a few families have moved and pre-primary education has taken an age group. The shifts were planned for last autumn’s number of children and have been carried over as they were. Nobody has made a mistake. The situation has simply changed more slowly than the rosters.

One chain, one view

Chain management typically sees each unit’s staff ratio separately, when the unit director reports it. The report arrives at the end of the month and is based on what the unit has recorded by hand. Figures from two units are hard to compare if they were calculated differently and for different points in time.

When the staff ratio is calculated from check-ins, every unit produces the same figure in the same way. In the admin view the units sit side by side in the same table, and the management mobile app shows the same information on a phone. Understaffing and overstaffing are highlighted, so deviations stand out without opening each unit’s figures one by one.

Then you can ask more precise questions: in which group are there more staff than needed, and at what time of day.

The recruitment that was not needed

One daycare chain using Knuut was about to hire a new teacher. The need seemed clear: one unit was stretched, and an open vacancy was already being prepared.

When the chain’s staff ratios were viewed at the level of the whole organisation, another unit turned out to be overstaffed. Staff were spread more evenly between the units, and the new hire was never made. The saving was one teacher’s annual salary plus employer costs.

Neither unit had calculated anything wrong. The information existed in both. It had simply never been looked at on the same screen at the same time.

Overstaffing varies during the day

The chain-level figure shows the direction, but decisions are made at group level and by time of day. In the morning between seven and eight, a group may have two adults and three children. In the afternoon after four, the same group may be stretched, when all three staff members have already left and ten children are still waiting to be picked up.

A monthly average shows neither. It shows that the group is fine on average. That is why the staff ratio has to be read from check-ins that carry a timestamp. Then you can answer whether the morning shift should start half an hour later and the evening shift end half an hour later.

Care times tell you about tomorrow

The actual staff ratio is read from check-ins. The upcoming staff ratio is read from the care times guardians have submitted. When guardians submit their weekly rhythm and absences in the app, the unit sees in advance how many children to expect on each day and at what time.

One Knuut customer noticed from the upcoming care times that clearly fewer children than usual were coming on Friday afternoon. The food order was reduced accordingly, and some of the staff could go home earlier. They knew about it well in advance.

The same information works in the other direction. If more children than usual have been booked for next Tuesday, an open shift can be published to substitutes right away.

Where to start

Finding overstaffing does not require new reporting. It requires check-ins made on a phone during the everyday routine, and a view where the units sit side by side. After the first month, management can see in which units there are consistently more staff than needed, and at what time of day.

Knuut can be taken into use in about two hours, and the first month is free. That is enough to get a first real picture of the chain’s staff ratios. Book a demo and we will go through your units together.