It’s no secret the administrative demands of managing an OSHC centre can be overwhelming.
From answering family enquiries to amending bookings, managing OSHC and vacation care enrolments and everything in between – the administration and logistical tasks can quickly pile up for providers and centre teams.
To reduce their impact on you and your team, we have identified easy-to-implement childcare and daycare management solutions to some of the administrative activities that often consume your time – so you can get back to what you love to do!
5 Easy to Implement Solutions
1. Create email templates to speed up responses
Do you have enquiries coming in and minimal time (and staff) to respond to them all? Cut your response time in half by creating a range of email templates. These templates, focused on your most commonly asked questions/queries will allow you to communicate quickly and accurately with families, whilst still ensuring that your brand and information is represented appropriately. It also means that anyone in your team can respond to enquiries confidently, so it’s not always up to just one person.
We also recommend allocating 2 blocks of time each day to review your enquiries and respond accordingly – and clearly communicating this to families. Don’t forget to get on the phone as well, sometimes a single call can reduce the back-and-forth email communication by half!
Still running short on time? Enrolment Hub’s dedicated OSHC support team can help manage this entire process for you.
2. Digitalise your OSHC enrolment paperwork
There’s no getting around it, enrolment paperwork is a heavy administration burden for any OSHC provider.
Reduce this burden by digitising your OSHC and vacation care enrolment paperwork. Most CCMS programs worth their weight will allow you to digitise your enrolment paperwork. Not only will it speed up your enrolment processes, but it will also make it easier for families to complete – and file information accordingly under each child’s enrolment, reducing the administration workload again.
If you want to take this a step further, programs such as Childcare CRM are perfect examples of online systems that can allow you to create, adapt and automate the family enrolment process – alleviating several administration tasks from your list whilst at the same time nurturing that family relationship by customising the family enrolment process and keeping that communication flowing!
3. Outsource your account and debt management
It’s a fact – Child Care Subsidy (CCS) entitlements can be confusing for families. It’s inevitable that families will have questions, queries, and discrepancies to be investigated – which can sometimes take days to explore and correct.
With often limited administration staff to field these queries, accounts management is a fantastic task to outsource to an experienced team.
And while you’re at it – why not task this team with managing your debt ledger and fee recovery? Working as your internal Accounts Manager, our Accounts Team can work with families to follow up on overdue fees, develop, and most importantly, maintain family payment plans including collecting manual payments.
4. Head online for vacation care requests
Vacation care enrolments can add a whole new layer to the administration workload for any OSHC provider.
Ease that quarterly administration load by moving your vacation care requests online. Quick and convenient for families – this online request will simplify the exchange of details and speed up the confirmation of your vacation care enrolments.
Ensure that your upcoming vacation care program is available online in advance and then request families fill in a vacation care request using an online form. This form should include fields for personal details and their preferred care days (and incursions) – as well as a place to sign and agree to the vacation care enrolment terms and conditions. Whilst this request does not confirm the enrolment it will allow you to process the enrolment quickly.
Some CCMS programs such as OWNA, will even allow families to book vacation care directly online – so it’s worth reviewing your CCMS capabilities.
Online vacation care request forms are especially helpful for families that don’t use OSHC regularly but do need vacation care.
5. Activate family casual day bookings
Casual days are a great value add for families, as well as a fantastic source of additional revenue for OSHC providers.
So why not allow families to book their own casual days (usually via an app) at their own time – rather than requesting and waiting for you to respond to an email or message? You can also alert families when a new casual day becomes available, allow them to log their absences (increasing the number of casual days you can offer) and send personalised messages – truly creating a personal connection.
Worried about staffing? You can build in parameters and specific rules around casual day bookings (such as they must be booked at least 24 hours in advance) to give you the opportunity to plan your roster and minimise any last-minute request stress on you.
Don’t forget, that the key to online casual day bookings is clear communication and instructions for families. Spend time explaining exactly how the system works – and what constitutes a confirmed casual day so that they can book with ease and not have to come to you with questions!
So, that’s it! We hope these 5 solutions will help you reduce the administration workload at your OSHC service.
If you’re ready to really offload your administration workload, why not chat with our team about how we can support you to allow your centre and business to thrive? Simply get in touch with the team here.
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