Staff Turnover - What You Can Do to Drive That Number Lower

The early childhood education industry has changed post COVID. Some of those adjustments have offered a better solution than what was in place previously. And on the other hand, some shifts have presented new challenges for teachers and leadership alike. One struggle that organizations face in 2025 is associated with their workforce, specifically disengagement, absenteeism, and the resulting staff turnover.

The average staff turnover across all industries in the US is 3.3%. Healthcare is one group that is on the higher end of turnover with an average of over 20% (US Bureau of Labor Statistics 2025). The majority of the ECE industry (65%) averages a 33% turnover rate. And 26% of the industry reports turnover rates higher than 60% (LineLeader 2025 ECE Benchmark Report).

Despite rising levels of employee engagement before 2020, 52% of employees are not engaged at work today (2025) with an additional 17% actively disengaged, according to Gallup's State of the Global Workplace report. When employees are not engaged or actively disengaged, absenteeism becomes a rampant issue. In an early childhood education setting, absenteeism is significantly higher than 5 years ago.

Every preschool director struggles through the morning shuffle after call outs, rearranging schedules and communicating as quickly as possible so their team doesn’t get more frustrated.

So, what can you do to make an impact, you ask? There are several things that can help leaders and teams. First, make sure you publish a schedule and you have a tool that makes the morning changes easy to navigate – technology is your friend on this one. ……………

Second, try to have one day a month that your school is closed or closed to children and publish that to your team. There is a federal holiday in January, February, May, June, July, September, October, November, and December making it fairly easy to accomplish this. Trust me, if you market to your staff that they will have a paid day off every month, your absenteeism with decrease!

Third, be aware of your school’s culture and actively work on becoming the employer of choice. We know there are several items that are truly culture killers with today’s workforce: micromanaging, lack of flexibility in leadership, leaders who are “always” right and don’t apologize, leaders who only focus on the “issues”, leaders who lack self- awareness, and are guilty of favoritism. So, choose your battles and learn to let the small things go. Everything cannot be an issue. Focus on positively and authentically recognizing your team five times more than providing them with opportunity feedback. When you provide opportunity feedback, ensure you are calm, open to listening, and able to assume innocence. Make sure you are more focused on getting it right for the children versus you being right. Let your team be a part of the plan, do things with them, not to them! And when you can, give them autonomy and empower them to make decisions. You will all benefit from collaboration and so will your families and students.

And finally, always be interviewing! We know folks will move on so stay ready. If you are short staffed, it becomes a painful cycle of burnout, discontent, and absenteeism. Be proactive and prevent the potential. Your team will thank you for it!

By: Danielle Millman