If this hurts Childtime then it also hurts the people who work there as well when jobs are scarce enough. Bottom line is the Director did a courageous thing that she felt was right and the company had every right to fire her. Now she and Childtime will have to suffer the consequences. It probably should have been handled differently but hopefully no one else will have to suffer from their decisions.
daycare provider fired???
- Thread starter RhoadsRage
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If this hurts Childtime then it also hurts the people who work there as well when jobs are scarce enough. Bottom line is the Director did a courageous thing that she felt was right and the company had every right to fire her. Now she and Childtime will have to suffer the consequences. It probably should have been handled differently but hopefully no one else will have to suffer from their decisions.
...We value the relationships we have built with our families and will continue to work hard to provide each child with loving care from the best staff around."
Pot... meet kettle!
Pot... meet kettle!
As a business owner, if I were put in this position of finding out that an employee allowed $8,000 of business to be lost (even for a "good cause") over a 10 month period, then I would have been ******. But, I would have handled it differently. I would have docked the employee's pay by $500-$1000/month until she paid back 1/2 or maybe 2/3s of the amount of business the company lost. Just because something is a "good cause" doesn't mean the company is in a position to be able to support it.
For what it's worth....have a good day.
From Ronco (About the 8th post into the thread):
"That's where my 5 year old goes for pre-school. The fired director is a huge Iowa fan and a super lady."
Here's the problem for the company though, it doesn't have to be "the same" circumstances. Where do you draw the line on what counts as "Tragic enough" to grant an exception to your policy. What happens if a multi-child family with 6 kids in the day-care losses their mother but all the kids are fine? Should the company give that family the same treatment? What happens if you you say no and that family happens to be black? Now you've exposed yourself to a racial bais lawsuit and the even worse exposure from that.
I agree the company could have handled this better, but they set the rules and its a simple rule that everyone knew and understood and they are firm about it. The employee broke the rule, even after asking the company for an exception.
That is why I would run an all white child care.
I kid, I kid (especially since my nieces and nephews would definitely have to be in) it is called discretion. You make the policy but then make exceptions based on the best information available at the point of decision.
Your approach leads to kids getting suspended for drawing knifes while doodling because it violates the weapons policy that says any weapon. As a manager/exec you gotta paint a broad picture and trust your talent to execute otherwise you are a crappy gauge of talent.
I understand the arguments for the business side but what is not being mentioned at all is how much this family had already given to this particular business. At $200 per week per kid, even just 2 years with 3 kids enrolled there adds up to over $60000 and after a terrible tragedy you offer them the equivalent of $200??? Come on man!!
As someone else mentioned in this thread, if you're going to have a business in the community, you better be prepared to give something back to said community and this provided a perfect opportunity for that and their "offer" was basically a pat on the back.
As someone else mentioned in this thread, if you're going to have a business in the community, you better be prepared to give something back to said community and this provided a perfect opportunity for that and their "offer" was basically a pat on the back.
Exactly, so instead of spinning this into a "here's what we did, when no one else stepped up" story and sweep the past behind them, they fired the lady and offered her hush money.
Legally, they had every right to do as they did.
Ethically, it stinks.
According to their website, Childtime has been in business for 40 years and has 250 locations. I'm sure with that many children going through their facilities that they have had many tragic situations that they have had to deal with. They probably developed a policy long ago when the first one happened. Kudos to the manager for doing what she felt was right, but she really left them no choice in the matter.
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I don't think ethically it is one sided. The Director went against her company and gave away $$(services) that did not belong to her. You can color who was right or wrong based on whose perspective you want to take.
They didn't do it willingly which is why someone lost their job. Wasn't my point anyway. This family helped support that business and they repay them with an offer of less than 1% of what the family had paid in to them? Just doesn't seem right to me, but to each their own.
The business didn't give the family $8000...they were willing to give the family $200. The director gave the rest on her own and without approval of the business. IMO she was right in what she did and the business was right to fire her. Offering her hush money to keep quiet was the giant mistake.
I understand all of the people who say business is business. But that shouldn't be true in every circumstance.
Should businesses not give to charity? Should businesses not give anything to their employees except for the governmental requirements? Because both of those directly hurt the bottom line. Point being...there is more to business than the bottom line and this certainly was one of those times. So for only caring about the bottom line in a terrible tragegy like this...the business should pay for the terrible PR they generated.
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In the end the best thing is that a family in need got some help because someone right or wrong did what they thought was right. In the article the Director didn't think she would get fired over it though. Sounds like she knew she would get caught and punished but not fired. Hopefully she can land on her feet and get her own childcare business going. It would be interesting to see what she would do if she has her own Childcare facility and someone there needs assistance.
Interestingly, just last month Childtime's parent company announced that they had raised over $600,000 for the Make-A-Wish foundation and over $86,000 for Ronald McDonald House. I can't believe they are able to raise that kind of money, yet only offered the DeJoode's roughly $200! Seems to me you take care of your own.
I don't think you can look at it like that... what's to say they wouldn't have gone to the daycare if it wasn't free? If that is the case, the only thing they lost would be the expenses to watch an extra kid, which i would assume is fairly minimal
