Employees and Keys to the Child Care Business: Important Things to Consider
As a Child Care business owner, you cannot be in your business every second of every day – at least, you shouldn’t be there all the time. For the efficiency of operations, your sanity, and health, it is often necessary to allow some employees to have keys to the Child Care center. The most common are the employees who will be opening and closing the center each day, as well as members of your management team. Systems and policies must be implemented to prevent employees with keys from posing problems or creating a security risk—important considerations.
Trusted Employees. Only trusted employees should be given a key to your Child Care business. Trust is developed over time, and automatically giving a new employee, even a new manager or director, may not be a good idea. Having a standard length of employment, such as three months, before any new employee is given keys is a good idea. During this period, as all Child Care owners know, some employees will work out and some will not. Some employees will leave (quit or be let go), some may change roles within the business, and some you may feel you can trust with certain things, but not with the keys to your Child Care business. And some will become trusted employees – those are the only ones who should have keys.
Policies. Establish clear, written policies regarding when employees are permitted to enter the building. For instance, the employee may only use the key to open the building each morning at 6:00, Monday through Friday. Or, the employee is not allowed to enter the building during non-operating hours, on weekends, or on holidays. Having cameras everywhere with continuous recording helps to monitor and enforce this policy. You may also want to add an option to your security system that allows you to receive a notification whenever someone enters the building during non-operating hours. This is a common feature of security systems today, available at no additional cost or with minimal cost.
Key Control. Keeping up with the keys is very important for security. As part of your written policies, you should also include language regarding employees’ responsibilities for maintaining the keys, not allowing others access to the keys, and not making any copies of the keys. For facilities with only a couple of main access doors, such as the front and back doors, key management and audits are easier. Every year or so, have the locks on the front and back doors changed, collect the old keys from the employees, and provide them with the new key. Should someone have made a copy and provided it to a third party, their access would end.
Key Agreement. Consider a formal “Key Agreement” that includes the written policies regarding the keys and access to the facilities. As part of giving an employee keys, you would review the “Key Agreement” with them, answer any questions, and the employee would sign acknowledging their understanding and commitment to the polices and agreement.
Key Return. One of the most important things to address is the requirement that the keys be returned immediately if the employee quits or is terminated. Most employees will return the keys; however, some will not, and they may use not returning the keys as leverage to get back at the owner or plan to access (or give someone else the keys) to gain future entry to the building. For instance, a common statement from a newly released employee goes something like this: “When I receive my last paycheck, vacation pay, and the bonus you promised, and this or that, I will return the keys.” Well, of course, this puts you, the child care business owner, in a difficult position. One of the best ways to address this potential problem is to do so before it happens. In your policies and “key agreement,” it should include that the employee agrees to return all keys and other business property immediately upon quitting or being released. If the employee fails to return all keys and other business property within 24 hours, it will be considered theft of business property. The police will be notified, and charges will be filed against the employee. Providing the employee with a copy of the “key agreement” they signed can help resolve the issue, encourage the employee to return the keys, and prevent the need to contact the police. (As always, work with an attorney to develop this and all employee policies and agreements.)
As a child care business owner, you cannot, and should not, be in your child care business all the time. This requires having certain trusted individuals who have keys to open and close the facilities when you are not present, allowing for more efficient operations. Additionally, this allows you, as the owner, to have some much-needed time away from the business to attend to other matters or take a well-deserved break.
