Work Environment Standards

Standards for providing safe and supportive work environments for early educators

Creating good jobs for the early care and education (ECE) workforce requires multiple integrated strategies. The National ECE Workforce Center recognizes this need and organizes its work around five essential policy areas, or key topics, identified by the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE) Early Childhood Workforce Index as being critical for supporting the ECE workforce and higher-quality services for children and families. Each of these policy areas directly impacts the ECE workforce’s ability to thrive, which in turn improves recruitment and retention of early educators, stabilizes services for families, supports small business and the economy, aids parents’ ability to work and seek out job training and education, and leads to improved outcomes for children and families.

A good work environment includes appropriate pay, benefits, and opportunities for ongoing learning. Supports that enable good ECE practices are also important and include sufficient staffing, paid planning time, staff wellness (e.g., guaranteed breaks, mental health consultations, access to adult-sized furniture, mentoring, coaching), and the inclusion of educator voice in program design and decision making.

Key challenges

Few quality improvement initiatives have addressed the working conditions of educators. For example, paid planning or preparation time, an important facet of support for teaching, often does not appear as an indicator of quality in state quality rating and improvement systems (QRIS). Additionally, some best practices for working conditions (e.g., substitute pools for planning time and paid time off) have associated costs that many ECE systems do not account for.

Promising approaches

Educators are more likely to stay in their current position if their employer supports their well-being and they are empowered to make decisions in the learning and care settings they work within. Collegiality and teaching supports, as well as access to wellness supports and opportunities for program development and leadership are key components of supportive work environments. Staff Wellness Action Plans are one planning tool that programs can use to intentionally and thoughtfully create a workplace that values staff wellness, mental health, and physical health.

Additionally, quality indicators in quality improvement systems could be updated to include paid planning, professional development time, and the use of a salary scale. States can also fund substitute pools, allowing staff paid time off for personal or professional development purposes. Articulating and incorporating workplace standards into program regulations such as child care licensing and Head Start Program Performance Standards can also be beneficial.

For a deeper dive into the status of work environment standards, including state progress on this, see the Early Childhood Workforce Index chapter on this topic, and for more resources to support your own efforts to improve work environment standards, see the section below.