has been placing employees in temporary and permanent positions in State Licensed Childcare programs since 1998. Our employees meet all State requirements before they are sent on any assignments. The cost of a quality substitute teacher barely holds up against the value of having access to a great teacher when you need one.

• Employee’s hourly wages
• Employee’s payroll taxes
• Social Security contributions
• Workers Compensation insurance
• Unemployment taxes
• Liability insurance to $1,000,000
• Creating and maintaining payroll records
• Cost of check processing
• Generation of W-2 forms
• All employer administrative costs
• Workers’ Compensation claims

When your childcare program decides that the staffing structure struggles to support daily fluctuations in staffing due to illness or unforeseen circumstances, you have two choices; increase your full-time or part-time staff OR augment your current staff with temporary workers.

Many Directors/Administrators reject the latter solution, believing that the fee paid for utilizing temporary workers is too costly compared to the hourly rate of their own staff. However, the cost of an employee consists of much more than just their hourly rate, e.g. benefits, taxes, insurance, etc. These costs are tangible, but there are other costs involved that are less obvious and hard to quantify. To truly evaluate the best option for your program, all factors contributing to the cost of hiring a new employee need to be explored; they are part of the total equation.

• Recruiting Costs – costs associated with creating and advertising a job description, reading through resumes, interviewing candidates, and selecting the new hire. These can include:
  Ads and job board posts – newspaper ads can vary from $250-$3500 depending on the size and newspaper. Postings on job boards can cost over $400, depending on the number of listings.
• Other recruiting costs – can include reference and background checking fees, drug screening fees, fingerprinting fees, etc.
• On-Boarding Costs – costs associated with making an offer, processing the new hire through the orientation/probation period, and training.
• Compensation Costs – total compensation and administrative costs that include benefits (medical, vacation, holiday, sick, etc.), salary, payroll expenses, wage garnishments, taxes, etc.

A Director/Administrator’s time costs money. Therefore, the time investment of the Director used to recruit and process new hires can make the undertaking more expensive than leveraging a temporary workforce. However, many of these internal recruiting costs are not easily quantifiable, and therefore easily forgotten. They should not be forgotten because they are still part of the Employer’s Time. Many of the hidden costs of handling the hiring process in-house are wrapped up in quantifying the Employer’s time spent recruiting and hiring, by breaking down the internal recruiters’ salary per hour and then applying that hourly charge to time spent on the following activities:

• Preparing for interview
• New hire planning
• Preparing and placing ads and job posts
• Preparing recruiting materials
• Screening 1st round of applicants
• Conducting phone interviews
• Setting up, preparing and conducting 1st round of interviews
• Selecting candidates for 2nd round of interviews
• Setting up, preparing and conducting 2nd round of interviews
• Selecting final candidates
• Checking references

When utilizing the services of Piazza, there are costs involved as well, but they are minimal by comparison.

• Recruiting – Childcare programs can take complete advantage of the professional expertise of Piazza to conduct the recruiting process.
• Time Card and Invoice Processing – Childcare programs will have to at some level process time cards and payroll.
• Wages – Childcare programs still pay the wage of the Substitute Teacher even though they do not process and deliver the paycheck.
• Mark Up for Piazza – There is a margin included in the employee’s wage by Piazza to offset the taxes, workers compensation, insurance and administrative fees that you would otherwise have to pay for your employees. So, even though you pay the markup you are not paying payroll taxes and expenses, including workers compensation and benefits.

It is important to remember that the total compensation package of an employee includes costs such as benefits, insurance, taxes and administrative fees. The employer (in this case – Piazza) is always responsible for covering these costs; this means that when you independently hire an employee you are required to absorb those costs. In the case with temporary workers, Piazza absorbs them.

This post-recession economy is the “new” economy. To be profitable and successful, childcare programs must maximize all their resources, including material and staff. In the vast majority of cases, choosing to leverage Piazza allows your program to potentially reach a new level of effectiveness by freeing up resources.