Should professional development be a contractual standard for Village staff?
I was recently asked to review an employment contract for someone in childcare. What took me by (pleasant) surprise was a standard clause in the contract regarding Professional Development.
The clause read “All fixed term contract staff are required to attend assigned Professional Development days…”
I’ve had a few employment contracts during more than two decades in this sector. None have had such an explicit clause in them regarding Professional Development.
Now, I fully expect someone to say “but childcare is a different sector.”
If you too feel this way, consider this:
- it is a sector that is heavily regulated;
- it is a sector that requires high levels of compliance from staff as the role involves caring for vulnerable persons;
- staff aren’t always paid at the level which represents the complexity of the role;
- the influential stakeholder is not always the person cared for, but a family member; and
- the sector his heavily scrutinised by the media when things go wrong.
Sound familiar?
We don’t always need to recreate the wheel when it comes to these things. If clauses like this work for other sectors, why can’t they work in our sector? Sorry, not ‘why can’t we’, rather its ‘why shouldn’t we.’
Just as organisations enshrine their mission and values into an employment contract, doing the same with regards to professional development is a logical next step. It suggests a partnership with two very clear messages:
- We are committed to investing in your ongoing professional development; and
- We expect you to take your professional development seriously.
Studies in organisational behaviour suggest that when staff are under-developed, they feel undervalued. They become flight risks.
Last year, research we conducted suggested 1 in 4 Village Managers were openly seeking new opportunities in the sector, with 40% looking for career advancement.
This suggests ambition to grow. We need to demonstrate to our people that we are genuinely committed to their growth, and their professional development.
Including this in their employment contracts, combined with an annual review process that looks at their professional development needs, desires and ambitions starts to bring all of that together.
The sector talks about residents being at the centre of everything we do. It is our people who deliver on this with the final piece of the puzzle then being financial buy-in, and having real professional development in your budget, year on year.
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