Daycare centers deal with a substantial amount of daily workflow. More often than not, the staff is overwhelmed with administrative tasks. Many centers try to reduce the load b hiring new employees. Meanwhile, the investment in such a solution can be minimized with the assistance of childcare apps.
Childcare management software is designed specifically to improve childcare center operation, reduce the load of repetitive tasks, and give the staff an opportunity to do their job. Many childcare organizations are already taking full advantage of such software. Let’s discuss several ways how it can help.
1. Reducing Paperwork
Childcare centers have to deal with a substantial amount of paperwork. An average American uses 700 pounds of paper annually.
From daily reports to letters to parents, many staff members are overwhelmed with repetitive writing. Aside from the time it takes to create handwritten documents, they are prone to human error.
Childcare apps are designed to feature all the necessary forms and report templates. Your staff would only need to enter certain information once for it to be used in the following reports. This can minimize the amount of paperwork and allow employees go about their daily duties.
2. Improving Parent Engagement
Children younger than 12 months require a special approach to development. It’s a joinе effort of parents and daycare center specialists. Many parents don’t have the opportunity to spend the majority of time with their children. That’s why they delegate some of these responsibilities to daycare center experts.
However, parents still want to be involved in the learning process. Many daycare centers spend an immense amount of time on keeping parents updated. When they come to pick up children, a staff member can only share a small part of the way a child’s day went. However, with a prime childcare app, parents can receive regular reports and real-time updates.
3. Saving Time
When parents pick up and drop off their children, daycare center staff is going through some hectic moments. Employees have to talk to the parents, discuss the child’s needs and requirements, and ask questions while keeping an eye on the rest of the children.
More often than not, discussed matters are not for the child’s ears, making the interaction even harder.
Childcare apps are designed to reduce these staff-parent face-to-face interactions during the busy pick up and drop off times. During the day, a parent can get a report describing the child’s activities and needs.
Staff members can compile reports and make lists of questions while children are sleeping and nothing distracts them.
4. Keeping Information Safe
Childcare centers have to work with private information. Data that concerns a child’s learning and development should only be available to the parents (or guardians) and educators. Some staff members may be sharing this information over social media channels or on the website. This makes the data highly vulnerable to fraud.
Childcare apps have built-in security features that keep all sensitive data safe. By using the app, you can adjust the settings so parents have access to the information about their children only. This ensures utter privacy, which can’t be achieved when all parents take advantage of the same channel to track their children’s progress or ask questions.
5. Boosting Program Quality
Having access to new tools offered by the app can help a childcare center improve its services. From better communication with parents to high employee satisfaction levels, the overall productivity of the center experiences a boost.
Parents and guardians are more likely to choose a daycare center that takes advantage of the latest technologies. Today, real-time reporting and monitoring of children’s activities are considered to be an integral part of services offered by daycare centers.
6. Improving Employee Satisfaction and Retention
Daycare center staff must have a highly specific set of skills. Delegating paperwork and manual tasks to these specialists is counterproductive. Many daycare centers suffer employee retention problems. More than 46% of HR managers believe that burnout is the reason for half of the company’s annual workforce turnover.
Childcare apps can take the repetitive work out of your staff’s hands, thus raising employee satisfaction, reducing burnout, and decreasing turnover. Many daycare center employees take full advantage of such software to improve their productivity.
7. Enjoying Online Finances
Childcare management apps provide the option of sending detailed invoices and annual tax documents over email. Even though you can still hand out printed invoices monthly, it’s much easier to keep this information online.
By using a childcare app, you can keep track of payments while giving parents an opportunity to review their invoices. This is especially helpful for centers with multiple children in care.
From art projects to recommendations, parents take a huge amount of paper home every day, so a printed invoice can easily get lost.
Online banking coupled with online invoicing provides substantial convenience for both the center and the parents.
In case parents receive subsidies, the app can handle the task of recording payment from more than one source while crediting each subsidy to the right account. The program can also manage refunds.
8. Timely Notifications
Childcare apps don’t just take the manual work out of the way, they can manage attendance and notifications. Instead of checking-in manually, parents can do it by using a program. This reduces paperwork and takes a little chaos out of the morning drop-off routine.
The app can also be programmed to send out notifications to parents about upcoming events, unexpected closings due to weather, urgent messages from staff, and more. It’s possible to notify them through emails or text messages.
Final Thoughts
Childcare management apps are highly useful to both daycare centers and parents. They provide numerous options to reduce repetitive manual tasks, set up schedules, simplify invoicing, decrease paperwork, and much more.
In the 21st century, working without such widely accepted technologies could hinder a center’s reputation.
These daycare apps can increase productivity, cut costs, and streamline the workflow.
