Employee well-being, retention and attraction in early childhood education and care

The goal of the assessment

The main focus of the assessment was on whether the city had improved employee well-being, retention and attraction in early childhood education and care. The City Strategy aims to develop measures for improving staff availability in early childhood education and care and to initiate these measures during the council period. The entire city intends to improve its employee attraction and retention and improve working conditions by involving all staff in its operations.

Conclusions

The Education Division has taken a large number of measures for improving staff availability, but employee well-being, retention and attraction have deteriorated despite this. Part of this has to do with national trends, which the coronavirus pandemic may have amplified. However, part of the reason is that the staff shortage itself is a factor that exacerbates itself further by undermining well-being at work. But the staff shortage is not only a problem in Helsinki; rather, there is a shortage of early childhood education teachers across the country.

The staff shortage is already so severe that enhanced measures are still needed to improve staff availability. A more permanent solution to the staff shortage also requires action by the state, i.e. sufficient training positions. Based on the staff survey, the Education Division still needs to improve how staff suggestions for improving working conditions are incorporated into the workplace. Investing in employee well-being requires not only divisional measures, but also city-level solutions such as ensuring that employee benefits are competitive. The staff survey also highlighted that day-care centre staff would like to have a more peaceful work environment and less administrative reporting to enable them to concentrate on their core tasks better than is currently possible.