In 2008, new mum or dad Clare Roberts was struggling to discover a appropriate nursery, so she opened her personal, Youngsters Planet. Proper from the beginning, she knew that an engaged crew can be essential for achievement, significantly in a sector with traditionally low pay and—as anybody who’s tried to take care of greater than two kids without delay can attest—excessive stress.
The nursery did properly, so Youngsters Planet started to broaden. There have been 16 websites in 2016, when Roberts first took minority personal fairness funding from BGF, later promoting a majority stake to Fremman in 2021, remaining as CEO. Since then, the chain—she prefers ‘household’—has grown to 252 websites across the U.Ok., primarily by way of acquisition.
Given the significance of tradition to worker engagement, this created a problem for the agency, which options on Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For – Europe list 2025.
It’s exhausting sufficient to make sure that a tradition is constant throughout hundreds of workers, significantly when the CEO and founder can’t be in 252 locations without delay. It’s tougher nonetheless when a big proportion of the nurseries are staffed by individuals who, by definition, haven’t been a part of that tradition for very lengthy.
For Roberts, retaining tradition constant by way of M&A-led development begins with values. “My values as a brand new mum or dad 17 years in the past have been the muse blocks that our values and our tradition have grown out of,” she says.
“Values are a bit like campfire tales – when you’re not cautious, they get actually diluted. And, they’re not on the forefront of what everybody’s targets and goals are,” says Roberts. “So we did fairly an enormous piece of labor just a few years in the past, the place we tried to get our values into a spot that was simply recognizable for colleagues.”
Roberts’ profitable office technique at Youngsters Planet is now encapsulated within the acronym CARE: Group, A secure place, Reflective, and Glorious. “For us it’s about getting issues proper for our colleagues, to make a distinction for them, the kids that we’re taking care of and for the learners that sit inside our group,” she says.
To make sure it stays on the core of the office tradition, everybody who works for Youngsters Planet is seen as a model ambassador, with a accountability to symbolize its values.
Selective procuring
Bringing new groups round to Youngsters Planets’ tradition is less complicated, in fact, when the acquired firm’s tradition isn’t drastically totally different. Roberts has realized to pick fastidiously earlier than signing.
“Once you make an acquisition, the issues which are necessary to us won’t have been necessary to another person earlier than,” she says. Sadly, whereas it’s subsequently sensible to search for comparable cultures and values specifically, it’s not at all times sensible. “It’s actually troublesome till one thing turns into a part of your tradition to grasp how issues are [different].”
Roberts says that, regardless of her finest efforts, she expects to must make variations after a purchase order has been accomplished. “We had quite a lot of nurseries within the Liverpool area which have been a part of a gaggle and folks have been only a bit disrespectful to one another and didn’t respect the administration crew.
“For us it’s about getting issues proper for our colleagues, to make a distinction for them, the kids that we’re taking care of and for the learners that sit inside our group.”Clare Roberts
“We had to return to the fundamentals of speaking to everybody one after the other and drawing a line underneath what had gone on earlier than and speaking in regards to the fundamentals of our values to maneuver ahead, after which saved revisiting to ensure behaviors modified,” Roberts says.
An ‘Early Years’ firm
Being an ideal place to work is about construction in addition to tradition, whether or not the enterprise in query is listed, family-owned or personal equity-backed. Youngsters Planet prides itself on being an ‘Early Years’ firm, that means it helps these beginning out of their careers with apprenticeships and coaching instruments. Roberts says this stays a very necessary a part of her enterprise, given “the care sector is commonly seen by others as not being an expert sector or not one the place there are profession alternatives.”
This help additionally ensures that Youngsters Planet has excessive worker retention charges, which Roberts says is efficacious in a nursery atmosphere the place dad and mom and kids worth consistency of their carers.
Different advantages that help retention charges are enhanced annual depart entitlement and enhanced insurance policies by way of childcare, together with depart for maternity, paternity, adoption and fertility remedy. “We make certain we glance after our workers so that individuals come to us and stick with us,” says Roberts.
