Splitting Management Roles at Your Child Care Center

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Management in the child care world is a beast of its own. The unique thing about child care management is that often, the people managing childcare centers have little to no prior experience. As a result, often the leaders are not adequately trained and end up learning through trial and error as I did. 

As a previous child care director, part of my passion is sharing as much as I can with leaders. I want to support you and share my experiences to save you from some of the mistakes that I made along the way.

After visiting a few centers this summer and speaking at a Directors Conference, there is one common thing that leaders are all asking about, and that is the division of labor as it pertains to child care management. This is a hard question to answer because it all depends on your center and how many team members you have, but I'll give it a shot. 

Today, I am going to share with you how I divided up the management role amongst my team as a Director. Remember that this is not a one size fits all solution, but I think it will give you some ideas about your center and the best way to divide and conquer. 

There are two major roles as it pertains to Sandbox and managing your child care center, ENROLLMENT, and BILLING. After trying many different methods, this is what I have found works best. In smaller operations, often one person manages it all. However, in larger operations, it is best to separate the roles. I have found that someone who is best at the ENROLLMENT role often isn't the best fit for the BILLING role as well. If you can have the budget, breaking them up is best.

Here we go!

ENROLLMENT

This person will manage everything that pertains to enrollment in the center. At my center, this is the role I played. This role works best with someone who is people-oriented and motivated by numbers. 

Duties:

• Tour all prospective families
• Create and hand out tour/enrollment packet
• Manages all new interest and follow-ups
• Manages registration requests and enrollments
• Makes sure all enrollments are correct before passing on to billing
• Manages waitlist
• Monitors classrooms and class capacity
• Accountable for center enrollment numbers
  

The enrollment job is essential and should not be overlooked. If you want your center to grow, this is KEY! Enrollment is a full-time job and must always be at the forefront. If you do not have someone on your team who is focused on this, your center will not grow. 

BILLING

This person will manage all the billing at the center. This person should be good at math, organized, and detailed. You also want somebody with excellent social skills because they will be working with the families in your center. 

Duties:

• Collects all paperwork after new enrollments occur
• Creates and sends the family their first invoice after they enroll
• Manages regular monthly billing
• Collects all payments
• Manges late payments
• Manages child/staff files (paper if needed for licensing)
  

The billing job is also a very important role. Having a qualified and competent billing person will significantly reduce the owner's/director's stress levels by keeping the finances in order.

Final Notes:

As I mentioned before, there is no one size fits all solution. However, this should give you an idea of how to best manage the role division amongst your team. With the use of Sandbox, this role division is made pretty simple. If you have any questions about how to make this model fit your center, please don't hesitate to reach out to me personally! Wishing you all the best as you LEAD your child care center.

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