Stop Competing on Hourly Wage: The Ultimate Childcare Staffing Strategy
Updated: Sep 16
If you are trying to attract and retain strong early childhood educators by focusing only on hourly wage, you may be overlooking much of what makes your program an attractive place to work.
Child care programs often cannot compete dollar-for-dollar with every retail business, school system, or larger employer. What they can do is build a more intentional child care staffing strategy that looks at the entire employment experience—not simply the hourly rate.
A strong Total Compensation Strategy considers wages alongside benefits, professional growth, career opportunities, recognition, and the financial sustainability of the program.
Shift the Narrative: Create a Career-Focused Child Care Staffing Strategy
High-quality educators want to understand not only what they earn today, but what opportunities may be available as they grow within the program.
A thoughtful staffing and compensation structure can help programs consider:
Clear Career Paths: Defined staff roles with appropriate qualifications and compensation expectations.
Education and Professional Growth: Opportunities to recognize employees who earn additional credentials, degrees, or specialized training.
Benefits and Staff Supports: PTO, paid holidays, professional development, continuing education assistance, health or retirement benefits, and other elements of total compensation.
Performance and Growth: Consistent evaluation and goal-setting practices that connect professional development with future opportunities.
Longevity and Retention: Intentional ways to recognize employees who continue growing and contributing to the program over time.
The goal is not to promise automatic raises or benefits a program cannot sustain. The goal is to create a clearer structure so compensation decisions are thoughtful, consistent, and financially responsible.
But Can Your Program Actually Afford the Compensation Plan?
This is where compensation planning becomes more than a human resources conversation.
Before increasing wages, expanding benefits, or creating new compensation levels, program owners need to understand what those decisions will actually cost.
A raise may look manageable when you consider one employee’s hourly increase—but the real question is:
What will this change add to each payroll, and what will it cost the program over an entire year?
That is why financial planning needs to be part of your child care staffing strategy from the beginning.
Two Ways to Begin
JStewart Consulting now offers two levels of support depending on how independently you want to work.
Child Care Compensation & Financial Planning Resource Bundle — $75
This self-guided resource bundle helps child care owners review their current staffing and compensation practices while also considering benefits, retention, revenue and expense timing, compensation policies, and annual planning.
The bundle includes practical guides, worksheets, and planning tools that you can complete independently at your own pace.
This option does not include a customized compensation calculator or individualized consulting.
Customized Compensation Planning & Coaching — $595
For programs ready to build a compensation structure specifically around their own staff and finances, the customized package goes much further.
The package includes the complete $75 Resource Bundle plus a Customized Staff Compensation & Payroll Impact Planning Tool developed specifically for your program.
Together, we can consider factors such as:
staff roles and base wages
education and qualification expectations
prior experience
years of service
professional growth
performance-review considerations
payroll frequency
compensation goals
The customized tool then allows you to see what proposed compensation changes mean financially—including the increase in each weekly or biweekly payroll and the projected annual payroll impact.
The package also includes three hours of individualized consulting specifically for developing, customizing, reviewing, and implementing your program-specific compensation tool.
Because the formulas are built around your individual program, the customized tool is not sold as a stand-alone spreadsheet. The tool and coaching work together.
Build a Compensation Strategy You Can Sustain
Supporting educators and protecting the financial health of your program do not have to be competing goals.
The strongest compensation plans consider both.
Before committing to the next raise, benefit, or staffing change, take the time to understand not only what you would like to provide, but what your program can realistically maintain over time.
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