In order to support our nurseries and our colleagues, we are offering more training to Agency and Casual colleagues, including paid induction in order to help them be as helpful to other colleagues and the children as possible. We do not employ people who are just “bums on seats” so we can comply, we need genuine, passionate colleagues who can share the workload effectively and help us provide the care and teaching to children at a standard we can be proud of.
At Tops, we define Casual Colleagues as those who work on one particular site, without fixed hours, who we ring when we need some cover, and they choose whether to work or not.
Agency Colleagues are those who are prepared to work on several sites, also without fixed hours. Agency Colleagues are paid more per hour to help compensate for travel costs and parking somewhere unfamiliar.
These colleagues are very valuable to the nursery team because they help us maintain our legal ratios when colleagues are off sick, on holiday or we have vacancies. We would much prefer to have our own Agency rather than use external companies because we can be sure of their quality, communication skills and experience.
We treat all of our colleagues like family… because they are! We are delighted that all colleagues can benefit from Tops training.
