EP83: Busy Bees Nurseries - How to Create an Ideal Candidate Experience

All-In Recruitment is a podcast by Manatal focusing on all things related to the recruitment industry’s missions and trends. Join us in our weekly conversations with leaders in the recruitment space and learn their best practices to transform the way you hire.

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This transcript has been edited for clarity.

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Lydia: Welcome to the All-In Recruitment podcast Manatal where we explore best practices, learnings, and trends with leaders in the recruitment space. If you like our content, please subscribe to our channels on YouTube and Spotify to stay tuned for our weekly episodes. My name is Lydia, and joining us today is Natalie Edmunds, Head of Talent Acquisition for Busy Bees Nurseries. Welcome, Natalie, and thank you for joining us.

Natalie: It's an absolute pleasure to be here with you. Thank you so much for inviting me.

It’s an Industry Full of Passionate People

Lydia: So, walk us through your experience in the talent space, Natalie. What's kept you in this industry so far?

Natalie: I just love it. Talent Acquisition is an ever-evolving, innovative industry full of passionate people who really care about making a difference. Whether that’s creating an employer brand for everyone to be proud of, implementing organizational change that drives the business forward, or just being part of one of life’s major events. Well, I say, just one of life’s major events along with having a baby, getting married, or even buying a house. Getting that job in the career that you’ve always wanted is huge. And to be a part of that is a privilege.

Lydia: So, what is the pull there for you? What drives your passion for that?

Natalie: Oh, well, I’ve got two boys who are nine and five, and they are just the best people ever. I think when you love what you do at work and then you become a parent, you want to be able to deliver something that actually has an impact on society and the world. That becomes much more of a driver for you. That’s how I feel about Busy Bees Nurseries. Being able to bring in the best people to look after the lovely little babies and children that we have the privilege of caring for each day is huge. So, that connection is the driver.

Going Back to Basics to Tackle Skill Shortages

Lydia: Absolutely, that sense of ownership, that sense of involvement is real, because you’re also raising children on your own. So, that brings us to what kind of impact we would have on the children that are under our care. Childhood education and the childcare industry itself are definitely critical for those who are seeing the importance of impact, especially in the future.

Leading Talent Acquisition for a big brand such as Busy Bees Nurseries, what are some key areas of focus that you’ve paid attention to in the past year?

Natalie: Since I’ve joined the business, we’ve been looking at going back to basics. It’s a tough industry to be in right now.

I think we’ve been experiencing skill shortages. So, we needed to have a look at our processes and our ways of working to understand how we can improve them and set ourselves up for success. It’s been very much an audit of current processes, having a look at how we operate and trying to diversify our attraction methods has been the primary focus, as well as building relationships with the business.

Some of the relationships that we had previously weren’t quite where they needed to be. But over the last six months, we’ve set about putting that right. Everyone has to pull together and Talent Acquisition isn’t just the responsibility of Talent Acquisitions to deliver for the business. We need everybody who has a hand in that to be on board and that’s what we’ve been doing and working hard on over the last six months.

Lydia: What are some of the trends maybe that you've seen currently in the childhood education and even childcare industry when it comes to Talent Acquisition?

Natalie: So, I alluded to it before, it’s a huge competition. There’s more and more interest from a business perspective in this sector, along with the increased funding in the UK, and from the government in 2024 and 2025. We see this as potentially driving demand for more qualified staff in the sector. We haven’t seen that level of demand before. It’s leading organizations to look at improving things like the candidate experience, and a focus on diversity and inclusion to gain a competitive edge and to be able to expand those talent pools.

The other big one is retention, a huge focus. The job is so rewarding, and it’s amazing, but it’s hard. Looking after people can be really demanding. You have to be patient, and nurturing, you have to provide opportunities for the children to learn and grow. All of this while following quite set early years frameworks and adhering to safeguarding principles. Along with that, they’re changing diapers and helping little fingers to deal with their buttons or feed themselves, and then cleaning up the mess that little people leave in their wake, wherever they go. So, it’s really important that we look after our people. They’re looking after the children, we need to look after them. It’s that simple.

What we’ve tried to do is offer flexibility wherever we can, in line with legislation like ratios and things. We offer support from both a well-being, financial, and career perspective. Because Busy Bees is the largest early years provider in the UK, we have a career path that is unrivaled. We love to see internal colleagues progressing sideways, upwards, across geographies. That’s why we offer initiatives. This year, we have a talent exchange program, where colleagues from across all of our territories were given an opportunity to go to Canada. They were able to share learning opportunities build relationships across different territories and have an amazing time together. We are trying to address the trends in our industry by using the things that we’ve got at our disposal within what is a fantastic company.

Removing Unnecessary Requirements to Create an Ideal Candidate Experience

Lydia: What might be the candidate experience for someone who might want to explore a career with Busy Bees? What is the ideal candidate experience that you would like to see?

Natalie: We’re trying to offer the candidate an experience that they want to go through.

We’re trying to make it as non-cumbersome as possible. So, removing unnecessary requirements within the process and trying to really get to the nub of what their qualification is, what their experience in the childcare industry is, and what their motivation is. Why do they want to work with the children that we have in our care? We are trying to use technology where possible to do that.

We’re going through some trials at the moment around using an asynchronous video platform. But with any sort of technology change, what you have to do is look at your existing process, and then map that to something that is more palatable and also more consistent.

Previously, what we’re trying to do is really increase the speed of the candidate experience as well. So, if you see a job and you apply with Busy Bees, we’re looking to get back in touch with you within hours of your application, ideally, and then match you and get you in front of the relevant hiring manager as quickly and as easily as we possibly can. One of the things that we recognize is the people that apply for our roles. If they’re in the room with the children in a current role, then they don’t have access to their mobile phone, because you’re not allowed them in the rooms. So, your break times and commuting times are really precious. We try to offer flexibility around that so that we can capture our candidates at the time that they’re available.

Intersecting Motivations: Passion, Experience, and Parenthood

Lydia: Who do you attract the most in terms of age groups or generations? You mentioned the demand that’s increasing, especially next year and the year after in terms of funding. That’s definitely going to be a catalyst for this talent attraction, or even attracting the kind of talent that you need for your organization. So, who would you say you attract the most? What kind of generation or age group is most interested in a career in early childhood education?

Natalie: If I chunk it up into three really crudely, so apologies to anyone who’s listening, but we have a huge interest from people at the start of their career. They may have been babysitting for younger siblings, relatives, or friends, or just have that real kind of affinity and interest in working with young children, and the rewards that that brings. They will typically go into one of our education programs and then come through the other side as a qualified practitioner.

We also get interest from parents. So, if you’re a parent and you have a child, being near your child or having hours, or a workplace that allows that flexibility around the hours that you have childcare for your children is quite appealing. At Busy Bees, we offer considerable childcare discounts, which is really helpful for parents who are putting their children into international, Karen’s private nursery. That invokes another set of candidates that are interested in us.

We also have interest from our more mature candidate pools, people who maybe have been in education or care or NHS type roles, or healthcare roles, and who have that real nurturing, vocational draw inside of them. But now the shifts or the roles that they’ve been doing are not quite as appealing. And maybe they’re a grandparent, and they enjoy being around the young children again. So again, that sort of invokes that interest and that desire to want to work somewhere like Busy Bees, and for them.

We are open to all of the above. And we have amazing opportunities, not just for the practitioners, but for chefs, catering staff, and other sorts of support roles. There are lots of ways of being involved in the business, which is quite appealing to people.

Leveraging Apprenticeships for Success

Lydia: Moving on to the skill set, what might be some of the qualifications that you need to start a career or even to take your career forward in early childhood education? What might be some of these skills or certifications that you would look at?

Natalie: There’s a misconception that health and social care as an education path can lead you into the childcare industry. Unfortunately, at the moment, that’s not the case. You would have to complete a specific childcare-approved qualification. Typically, there are lots of different variations of this in the UK. But they all lead to what is known as a level three childcare practitioner qualification. The most usual way of doing this is through an apprenticeship.

Busy Bees has its own education and training business. We offer apprenticeships, and over 10% of our workforce is currently on an apprenticeship. We utilize our levy very well. We recruit anywhere between 300, 500, and 700 apprentices a year, and they are thriving elements of our workforce. We will always continue to grow people in this way. Giving them that opportunity in the childcare industry is crucial for us as a business. We love meeting the new apprentices every year, and they have never failed to impress and inspire us.

Lydia: I presume this will move directly into an element of attention. This is definitely an incentive to stay on and to give your best. Have you seen any kind of pattern around this?

Natalie: Yes and no. I mean, I think everybody in the TA industry is seeing quite a lot of movements. It seems to have slowed down in the second half of 2023. I think the cost of living and interest rates have had a direct impact. But up until this point, the workforce has been very transient and quite open to moving. I think what we’re seeing as well, from Gen Z or whatever classification that our apprentices would fall into, is that there is less of a likelihood of a job for life or even a loyalty to an organization.

We are really lucky in that we have people who have come through as apprentices. We have many, many stories of people who have come through as apprentices and remained with us throughout their whole careers, which is what we love to see. Because we do offer other opportunities above and beyond the initial level three, there are management apprenticeships, there are lots of other types of learning, and self-development, whether that’s got a qualification attached to it or not. We recognize that there are a lot of skills that people need to build within their career within the early childhood sector, to enable them to move on to management roles, or roles that may lean more into the quality sides of the business.

So, we’re really lucky because of the size of the business that we can offer all of this support and opportunities to people.

Streamlining Operations to Empower Childcare Professionals

Lydia: You briefly mentioned technology as being one of those key areas that you’re focused on in terms of improving the processes and all that. So, how has technology affected the recruitment process at Busy Bees?

Natalie: Well, I’d love to say a lot. But it’s not so much. It’s not where it needs to be. Our textbook is going through a review. A lot of our processes are manual and clunky. We are in our 4th year of business. We are a really fast-growing business over the last five to ten years. We haven’t necessarily kept up with that from a technology perspective. We’re on a journey to fix that.

So, I’ve got lots of different elements of workstreams that I’m looking at currently. But at the heart of all of that are the childcare professionals that we work with. What we’re looking to do is make their lives less arduous from a process perspective, removing unnecessary manual processes, and wasted time and effort. So they’ve got more time to spend with their amazing staff and the beautiful children that we have the privilege to care for.

2024 is really exciting for us. So we’ve got, as I say, lots of workstreams on the go. One of them is quite huge around our ATS, and how we can have more visibility around ROI and tracking and metrics and things to help inform the business and our community. So, if you ask about next year, I can talk you through that a bit more. But at the moment, it’s in its infancy.

Lydia: So, there are a lot of transformative projects or initiatives in place now that are getting us ready. It’s getting the company ready, rather than the whole network or the whole community ready for the big demand that’s coming in.

Natalie: Yes, that’s exactly right. It’s a lot of laying the foundations at the moment. We pick off some of the low-hanging fruit, we’re able to do some things that we can quite quickly implement, and don’t take too much of a transformation or a change curve to take people through the process. But there are other things that we need to do, which are bigger, and they’re going to take a little bit longer.

Lydia: Has there been any kind of change or any impact from the changing work dynamics that we’re seeing? We see more people working remotely and we’re seeing hybrid workforces coming in, we’re seeing people working fully remotely. So, have these recent changes in work dynamics impacted Talent Acquisition strategies for you?

Natalie: I think from a frontline perspective, if you think about our staff who work in the nurseries, everything about the younger generation, particularly, the expectation from them around hybrid working is much more heightened than when I first went into the workplace. I didn’t expect to go into a job and not work in an office five days a week. So, that expectation has changed. But if you unpick that and take that back to what I was talking about earlier, around that nurturing, and that desire to want to impact a young child’s life, when you can’t do that at home, or in a random coffee shop somewhere. You have to be in that location with that child to be able to affect that change and that impact. So, that hasn’t stayed the same. It just makes my team’s life a little bit more difficult when we’re trying to overcome some of the challenges from a candidate's perspective.

From a head office management perspective, what it has meant is the recruiter that I have on my team who looks after our senior roles, has much more of a wider remit, to be able to go after talent nationwide, effectively or even globally, if needs be, to fill the roles that we have within the business. We do like to try and have that kind of hybrid model where possible where people get together as a team because it’s quite nice to have that connection. But from a recruitment perspective, from a talent acquisition strategy perspective, it means that we’ve got more scope and fewer barriers to be able to find the skills that we need to take the business forward.

Building a Reflective Workforce by Embracing Diversity in Early Childhood Education

Lydia: What is your take on diversity and inclusion for this sector when it comes to Talent Acquisition? How do you incorporate that into the processes and make it part of the DNA of your recruiting process?

Natalie: I mean, straight away, the one thing I’d say is that there’s content out there. Children don’t see differences, so being around children from an early age, who are open-minded, and not influenced by bias, is a joy. We need to reflect that in our workforce. We featured the men that we have in childcare earlier this year, and in the summer, it was the most engaged social media campaign that we’ve done this year to date. The stories that we had from parents about the impact that those people have made on their children’s lives were just fabulous and so heartwarming and beautiful.

For me, it’s massive. If you can’t tell from my accent, I’m from Liverpool in the UK, which is known for The Beatles, and some other famous people. I am so proud of my city. But from a socio-economic perspective, we really have challenges. We have higher than average unemployment rates. The number of businesses and jobs per resident is lower than the national average, yet the city is full of vibrancy, creativity, fun, and excitement. If anyone attended the Eurovision Festival, which was held in Liverpool on behalf of Ukraine earlier this year, they know what I’m talking about.

Because of the background that I’ve got, in my role, I find immense satisfaction in the power to shape a workplace to reflect the richness and diverse perspectives and backgrounds of our world. We can actively challenge and dismantle biases in the recruitment process, it’s within our gift. We can create an environment where everyone, regardless of background, can thrive and contribute meaningfully. So it’s not for me just about meeting quotas.

It’s about fostering an inclusive culture that values differences, recognizes unique strengths, like the children in our nursery do, and gets together with a team. We are advocates for change within the organization, we champion broader approaches to decision-making. We fully believe that if we open up opportunities for all, we don’t just enhance the quality of our workforce, but we contribute to a more just and equitable society as a whole. So, it’s really quite deeply a passion of mine.

Lydia: Absolutely rewarding instead. All these stories that you’re talking about, especially the campaign that you mentioned earlier, are really heartwarming to see. You’re breaking through preconceived ideas or stereotypes, and you’re presenting something brand new. It’s refreshing to hear how this kind of impact goes such a long way, and in fact, even can influence other people to see themselves and think, maybe it’s a career for me as well. So, it’s nice to see that the element of employer branding, so to speak, is coming up very organically through the people that you have.

Natalie: Yes, and that is the beauty and the magic of this business. Because it is all about people and the different people that we have. It is dispelling the myth that it’s just a female-led industry, because our children when you walk around the nursery and you see a male figure in the room with them, just respond differently. Each child has different personalities, they respond to individuals in different ways. It’s just lovely to have that diversity of people within an issue wherever possible. It’s a special business and I think the more people that can come into it with the right attitude, mindset, and motivation is key.

I remember my two boys, five and nine, handing my children over to the nursery practitioner all those years ago, filled with such a mix of emotions. You’re guilty because you’re going to work and you’re jealous because that person’s going to spend that day looking at your child and getting cuddles and hearing them laugh, while you’re sat there listening to a hiring manager going on about how all the candidates aren’t good enough. He’s looking for that magical unicorn that we all know doesn’t exist, and all of that. It’s tough, but when you know that the person who’s doing that job and looking after the most precious person in your world is really motivated to give the best opportunity to children.

Then you end up with this child who’s ready for school, who can dress themselves, who can go to the toilet by themselves, who can feed themselves, who’s sociable and knows their ABC. You look at all of that effort that’s gone in over those years to that point, it’s really amazing. It’s been amazing.

Lydia: Do you have a favorite recruitment story or a kind of most memorable story around recruitment that you’d like to share with the audience?

Natalie: Yes, sure. So, the first role that I did was when we talked earlier about that drive, and that meaning, for the roles. I’ve always loved being in TA, I love everything about it. But I went to work for the Crown Prosecution Service, which is a department within the civil service. The requirement there was to recruit lawyers into the civil service, and to increase headcount because there were some challenges from an aging workforce perspective and lots of other things.

Within my first month, I think it was, I sat down with one of our lawyers to understand what the motivation was for that person working for the Crown Prosecution Service, as opposed to working in the private sector, where the salaries were probably far higher, and more lucrative and everything else. She described to me because she works with the youth offenders as part of the Youth Court. She described to me the impact of the decision-making that as a crown prosecutor in the CPS that you make, which is basically if a child commits a crime, and they are then found guilty, or they’re in the process of, and there is a decision to be made by the court, whether the rehabilitation of that child takes place in an institution, or whether it’s within their family and relatives and community of which they live.

She was describing how they very much look wherever possible for the latter. And how that support can be put in place. I just felt like that was huge. I got really emotional thinking about my boys, and thinking, even if they got into trouble one day, they had to go through that process, and the impact of them going to an institution, as opposed to being rehabilitated through their own family. What does that mean, I just thought the weight of that decision was huge. My ability to influence and help the recruitment process and make sure we get the right people who are hopefully going to make the right decision as much as they possibly can. We’re all human, right? So it’s not perfect, but as much as possible, I just felt like that was really amazing. I take my hat off to anyone who does that job to be on hand.

Lydia: It is significant. You’ve got the decision to make about what kind of person a child turns out to be in the end. Right, it depends on the rehabilitative experience they have.

One thing is that it’s really something. I can understand how this would have impacted you, especially when you’ve got two young boys that you look out for. So, thanks for sharing that with me

Natalie: I think when people talk about making a difference, this does make a difference. Gift bands are drawn to them quite a lot. I mean, wow, that’s bad, but it’s making a difference in quite a significant way.

As I say, no one’s perfect, and no one’s got my back decision right 100% of the time. But when you think about sometimes as far as the decision to make as a TA leader, should we go with this marketing channel, that marketing channel, it’s not quite on the same scale as what they have to do.

Embracing the Rollercoaster of Talent Acquisition

Lydia: So, Natalie, what advice would you give someone who’s starting out in Talent Acquisition today? We’ve seen so many changes in terms of technology. Even you, as you’re going through these different implementations in terms of process and technology, need to look at preferences differently when it comes to candidate experience. So, what advice would you give someone who’s starting out in Talent Acquisition?

Natalie: The first thing I would say to them is they’re really lucky because they’re about to embark on the most exciting, fun, rewarding careers I can think of. Honestly, like anyone, I fell into it, and I just love it. The advice I would give is, you’re going to have access, you have access now, to much more rich information, more varied information and content across the platforms that are accessible to you. But try not to get overwhelmed, just try to focus on the things that are really going to mean something to you and your business, and go after that, rather than trying to become an expert in everything.

I would say be open-minded. As you say, technology has moved on significantly in the last couple of years, hugely, but before that, again, at a rapid pace. You need to be able to shift and change and learn with the industry, and not be stuck in, “This is my old way of doing it. And that’s going to live forever.” Because it doesn’t. But there is some heritage information that if you can get that under your belt, will serve you well. Things around employer branding and candidate experience, those fundamentals, I think, have stayed pretty static for the past 20 years.

I would say build your network. I’m incredibly lucky. I’m part of the IML 100 among the advisory boards for the firm. This enables me to spend time with some incredible individuals who’ve got much bigger and more important roles than I have across various sectors. They are really willing to share ideas, and knowledge, and look out for us. And even just enable us to sound off when you’re having a bit of a tough time.

That has been so influential and so important to my career, particularly for the last few years, which would have been quite difficult. I would just say thank you to all of those people who have been in my network because I couldn’t have gotten through some of it without you. They’ve been amazing.

And the last thing is to just have fun. It’s stressful. It’s frustrating. It’s ridiculous sometimes, and it’s mad. But I hope that you do love it as much as I do. Because then I’ve had a ball.

Lydia: Thank you very much for your time, your insights, and all these experiences that you just shared with us, Natalie. For the benefit of those listening in, whoever wants to pick up a conversation with you later, what may be the best way to get in touch with you? Which is your preferred channel?

Natalie: You [can] just find me on LinkedIn, ‘Natalie Edmonds at Busy Bees.’ I'd love to connect with you and catch up.

Lydia: Thank you so much, Natalie. I wish you a good rest of the week. We have been in conversation with Natalie Edmunds of Busy Bees Nurseries. Thank you for joining us and remember to subscribe. Stay tuned for more weekly episodes of All-In Recruitment.