28 | Highest quality of care Central Kids administers 52 early childhood services across the Waikato and Bay of Plenty, with around 4,000 tamariki enrolled in their centres each year. T T from page 26 Waikato Business Awards: Central Kids REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT The For Purpose award recognises businesses that apply commercial strategies to greatly improve community wellbeing outcomes, with surpluses created invested directly back into resourcing achievement of the organisation’s social mission. “Receiving this award acknowledged how our long-term strategies and investments have made our organisation stronger, and improved our ability to deliver on our purpose and core values in the communities we serve.” The People’s Choice award speaks for itself, with Central Kids polling ahead of 20 other finalists. For Christine the award represents the best validation of the positive impact the organisation makes for tamariki and whānau alike. Central Kids’ history extends back over 70 years, which is no small achievement in an early childhood sector that has had to adapt to continual change and uncertain funding models. To that end, Christine says her focus has been to wrap every centre with the best possible support for its leadership and staff, so they are empowered to deliver the highest quality care and education for the little hearts and minds of those attending, and more widely to their whānau and community. This, she says, has been achieved by transitioning the organisation to use transformative digitised business systems, and providing staff with all the training they need to embrace them. Central Kids has also prioritised investing in the personal and professional growth of staff across the business, regardless of their historical pathway in early childhood. “We have resourced the best possible professional development and leave entitlements for our staff, because we understand what it takes to deliver quality day in and day out. This is something I’m particularly proud of.” Central Kids is proudly bi-cultural, and around 50% of enrolled tamariki are Māori. Recognising that the best way to improve outcomes for tamariki is to support their whānau, Central Kids offers a flexible approach to fees, and additional wrap around support towards achieving a stable and supportive home life for tamariki. This can include supporting whānau with accessing long-term housing and sustaining their tenancy, debt management, WINZ entitlements, advocacy with other agencies, social or psychological support, and making connections to meet their disability, dental and healthcare needs “Tamariki need to be enrolled for a minimum of six hours per day, three days a week. This helps bring them and their whānau in to the service regularly, and for us to get to know them well. “I find it enormously satisfying that we have koroua (grandparents) who once attended our centre, now bringing their mokopuna to us.” Along with this, services are now open through the school holidays because, as Christine says, this is what whānau need. Evidence that these approaches deliver results can be seen in the extraordinary tenure of many staff at Central Kids, with some having devoted 40 years to teaching and caring for tamariki. “We think it’s only right that these highly skilled professionals receive positive financial compensation for their incredible resilience and dedication to their vocation. That’s why our staff costs to income ratio are quite high.” Asked where she’ll focus her energy next, Christine says it is about guiding the organisation through a period of consolidation, and directing resources into bricks and mortar. “Some of our buildings are quite old and in need of upgrading, though we tend to place more emphasis on the quality of the outside spaces where tamariki can run around and play.” Christine says she passionately believes that the early childhood sector, to do justice to itself, has to get better at gathering data and telling stories. “How do we know we do a great job? We have to be more evidence-based, focus on measurable outcomes and get the message out that what we do has a real and long lasting impact on the community and society at large. “I think what we’ve achieved at Central Kids is proof of the power of imagination and applying modern business systems to legacy institutions like kindergarten.” Hamilton company BES (Business Enabling Systems) prides itself on delivering business solutions to its clients that add real, practical, meaningful value and enable them to work as e iciently and productively as possible. The team, consisting of accountants, software developers and business analysts, are focussed on providing their clients, nomatter the size or nature of their work, with powerful solutions and great ongoing support “We have established long term relationships withmany clients and have developed strong knowledge of their organisations. Our suite of software programmes underpin and support them achieving their goals,” says General Manager, Jamie Steele. The not-for-pro it and community based business sector has become a signi icant niche for the BES teamwho have developed speci ic resources that answer the needs of, what can be, quite complicated business models, with several sources of income and accountabilities. The Sage intact cloud inancial solution has some key features that address the requirements of not-for-pro its, such as dimensional accounting and built-in customisable dashboards The tools that BES are providing to Central Kids are pivotal in that organisation achieving its goals of working withmore modern systems, easily accessible for sta to use and gain the quality of information they BES - delivering business solutions needed tomeet their reporting and auditing obligations. “Tomaximise impact, we know organisations need to be able to see, in real time, what is happening in terms of inancial performance andmeasurable outcomes.” It’s about targeting where cost e iciencies can occur and ensuring funding is used where the greatest gains for sta and those accessing the service will bene it directly. The Business Intelligence dashboards come into their own, providing detailed real-time inancial and operations data fromwhich the most informed business decisions can be made. “When you can easily access information that points to how your business is performing you’re then in a position tomake the best strategic decisions. That’s what we’re here to create and we take a great deal of satisfaction in seeing organisations, such as Central Kids, perform at their best and lourish.” Asked what really matters to him and the team Jamie says it comes down to a simple business philosophy. “The software we work with has the sophistication to handle changes in our client’s requirements over time, and we get a huge amount of satisfaction about supporting continuous improvement by our clients. To see a system delivering real e iciencies over the medium to long term for our clients is the best possible outcome for us.”
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