Another question for commitee - what do you pay your staff for?

[scarletlilybug]

Sorry, yet another question. I just don't know anyone in RL with specific relevant experience to know what is the "norm".

Anyway, what I wondered was what other committees pay their staff for (other than the actual session times, that is).

Setting-up/clearing-up time? Attending training courses? Extra preparation time? Staff meetings? Travel time? Lunch breaks? Tea breaks? Parents' evenings?

NOne of this is spacifued on our staff contracts and it has always been a bit ad-hoc... sometimes they get paid, sometimes they don't. I'd like to formalise things a bit just to try and make sure evytone knows where they stand. I just wondered what other pre-schools do.

Wish we could pay for the "extras", our pre-school is scrapping the barrell at the moment and we can just about pay the wages this month.
I've been asked to stall on paying for the food bill by the Treasurer because we have so many parents who are late paying! .
Problem we have is that the pre-school leader lives over 15 miles away and if she came to any evening meetings we would have to pay mileage, babysitter and usual hourly pay.
But of course us committee members have to do all of this for NOTHING!
Sorry, but i'm really fed up of doing all the work at the moment.

Oh god, I can so empathise with you. I'm sick of hearing about all the overtime our staff do and having them claim extra money all the time. If I'd realised what I was taking on with this job, I'd never have taken it. It's one headache after another and there's no "reward" at all.

We don't have much money either and I'm looking at cutting some or all of these payments entirely. The last treasurer used to pay when there was enough in the kitty - but that doesn't really fit in with the way I like to run things. The staff always assume that there is money to spare - but they're a long way from the truth. The way I see it, the staff are either entitled to be paid for these things, or they're not. I know it won't be popular with the staff - but I imagine redundancy would be even less popular.

We pay for 15mins before and after each session.

WRT training, we pay for all mandatory courses, CP, First Aid, SENCO etc.
Other courses are encouraged but not always paid for.

WE then pay approx 2 hours per person fpr planning/observations. Then the Playleader gets another 2 hours on top. We also have time in sessins when we have committee members in to provide non contact time.

Then they pay me to do 10 hours a week of admin for both committee and staff

If you contcat yoyr Childcare Development Officer at the council, they canprobably give you an idea of what other settings do too.

We pay for setting up and clearing up, staff meetings, parents evenings and attending training courses. We also pay an amount per term (varying with number of keyworker children) for admin etc.

Oops, we pay for lunchbreaks, there aren't tea breaks as it is a short day.
Staff meetings, yes if compulsory, same as committee meetings.

parents evening yes!

WE don't pay mileage unless it is a long way.

Do they have real lunch and tea breaks away from the kids? How much travel time apart from to and from work? (didn't think that would normally be paid) Apart from those, other things do sound like things which should be in paid working hours. Though whatever you do I agree it should be clear, not whether there's money in the kitty or not, doesn't sound good if someone's looking at the accounts.

Our staff are offered a 30min break at lunchtime away form the children, but they usually choose to eat with the children.

Thanks for the responses.
The supervisor gets paid travel time because she comes a long way to get here. I think its a bit strange, tbh - never heard f this in another job, but there you go.

Styaff in general just seem to come at the end of the month and say "oh yes, I did 15 hours prep time at home" and expect to be paid for this at the normal hourly rate. This is above and beyond the prep time included in their contracts. Last treasurer used to pay, as I said, when the finances were looking ok, but when times were tight, the staff would only get a bit extra or none at all. Just the way it was done. I find it all a bit strange and can't say I'm comfortable with it.

Also, they don't get any breaks during the day, but are asking for a payment to compenate for this. In other words, they're paid for 7 hours per day (6 hours contact time, plus one hour prep) and want/expect another 0.5 hours pay to "compensate" them for not getting a proper break. This is something else that strikes me as strange, but wasn't sure whether this was something other pre-schools do?

I think you need to review their contracts, for both of your sakes.

If they are working all day they should be offered a break. You need to know how many hours you are willing/able ot pay for non contcat time, as they could really take the mickey if not.
If they get an hour a day, that is extremely generous, plus 15b hrs a month extra, it's more than a teacher gets.

Do you get any help fromt he Cgildcare Development Officer at the council?

No one told me about ours until it all got very difficult, and then she was a godsend.

We pay 3 hours wages for a 2.5 hour session, to cover set up/clear down. No travel time, or lunch/tea breaks (though staff organise amongst themselves for 5 minutes to drink a cup of tea in the adjoining office during session times.

We pay for a 2x1 hour staff meeting per week, and 2 hours keyworking time per child per term. Extra prep time is paid, but needs to be justified, and is usually pre-authorised by the manager. Manager gets an additional 10 hours of admin/staff development time.

We pay hourly rate for essential training courses, but not for things like NVQ's. You will normally find that you can get council funding for essential training courses - they don't pay your staff, but will provide an amount per person you send, which you can choose to use to cover wages, or to purchase relevant materials.

Eeeek, rather you than me, it does sound like a messy situation. I was a union activist for a few years and my first reaction was to think surely staff meetings etc would be paid for. But undefined working from home sounds to me like a problem to budget for and open to abuse.

Teachers don't get paid extra for taking the marking and lesson planning etc home, they're expected to fit it in somehow. A preschool's not going to be doing homework, or the amount of formal teaching that you get in compulsory school. I'm surprised that preschool would need so much prep time though - I'm not saying it doesn't, but I think I'd want to be finding out what sort of work is being done in that time.

Also, many people travel a way to work, whether it's because they can't get a job closer or they want city pay, country lifestyle or they want to keep boundaries between home and work by having them in separate locations.

I think your staff are taking the p** somewhat - why do preschool staff need an additional 15 hrs prep time - paid. I suspect that is pretty unusual. Also unheard of ime to pay for travel time, or travel expenses, including for evening/parents meetings, their choice to take a job where they choose - try putting a thread on here for employed parents and ask how many get paid travel from home - work, and paid time for that - vanishingly few i would expect.

Committee members should get paid as well, especially the officers. I've spent hours sorting out paperwork and doing the minutes, now that i'm expected to do it for the pre-school and the after-school club (eventually they will be merged).
Just because i'm a SAHM they think i should do it all, as they have jobs to go to.
Fair enough, but on top of it all i'm trying to set up a business of my own and this pre-school stuff is getting in the way, but no other fool will take it on!

I feel committee members should be paid, too. I spend evening after evening doing work for the pre-school, yet get not a penny. I suppose there's an element of jealousy in my complaints about the staff payments, if I'm honest. That and a genuine "are they taking the p*ss?".
I know I never came across any similar patterns of work/payments beforehand.

We pay for half an hour's setting up and the same for clearing away plus an hour's preparation time per week. We don't pay for training courses (except travel expenses) or committee meetings on the basis that training courses benefit them and committee meetings are optional. Parents meetings are done during their normal working hours.

I have no doubt that they do far more preparation time that they are paid for, but it's tough shit basically, because we can't afford to pay any more than we do.

I've said this on other threads but I would strongly recommend changing your invoicing to payment in advance. We did this last term and it has made life and cashflow SO much easier.

Our preschool runs 4x 2.5hr session per week. The staff are each paid 30 mins setting up time and 15 mins clearing up time per session. The preschool leader also normally gets paid 2 hours admin / planning per week (but this term she's said not to pay it as she's not done any think she's doing her best to cut staffing costs as we're running at a loss)

We don't have evening meetings or parents evenings. They do have a termly meeting though. The last one cost nearly £175 in wages 3.5hrs for 7 staff members . I've suggested we don't have such long meetings from now on....

As for courses, preschool pays the course fees (most reimbursed by county apparently) and also if it's on a day they normally work we pay the normal session pay) even though the course probably lasts longer.

I wish committee could be paid too! I've spent hours and hours on admin since September. My maternity leave ended at the end of September, I'm now a WAHM, but because I'm at home I think they think I don't work, so have plenty of time for all this . I've got 4 children and a part time job - there's only so much unpaid preschool stuff I can manage!