Attracting and Keeping Qualified Staff in Canadian Child Care Programs
A project of Child Care
Connection Nova Scotia with funding from Social Development Partnerships of Human Resources Development Canada
Cause and Effect Diagram
A cause and effect diagram,
or fishbone diagram represents the relationship between an effect and
all the possible causes. The work you do is complex, there are many
causes that affect retention and recruitment challenges. The effect of retention and rectuitment challenges is not enough qualified staff to meet demand. For
every effect there are several major cause areas which can be grouped such
as equipment/materials, policies, procedures/processes, and human resources. In examining retention and recruitment challenges, the main causal areas identified were workplace, standards and recognition, societal attitudes, policy and education.
In each of these areas, the most likely causes are identified and selected for further analysis.
Example:
Look at the Nova Scotia environmental scan cause &
effect diagram for the Nova Scotia Retention and Recruitment project
(p. 5 of paper). Look at the Policy Cause
(level 1).
In Nova Scotia, Policy (level 1) is a cause of not enough qualified staff to meet demand.
In Nova Scotia the factors which are causes (level 2) of policy causes
of
not enough qualified staff to meet demand
are:
- the need for an overall vision for child care in Nova Scotia,
- regulations which contribute to the effect of not enough qualified
staff to meet demand, and
- the current policy.
In Nova Scotia, the factors which are causes (level 3) of
current policy (level 2) as a cause of policy (level 1) that is a cause
of not enough qualified staff to meet demand are:
- a labour force approach in policy;
- policy targets at risk children and families and
- salary enhancement grant only goes to centres incorporated as
Non Profit societies.
Process for constructing a cause and
effect diagram.
Use material gathered from your
reflection journals, brainstorm carousel(s), any research related to a cause area that has been conducted, etc. Put each of the causes on a post it sticky.
The effect that we are looking at is "Not enough qualified staff to
meet demand". The most important cause areas regarding retention and
recruitment are workforce, standards, policy, attitudes and education.
1. Sort for:
- Stickies related to the main effect ("Not enough qualified staff to
meet demand")
- Stickies related to the first level of each of the causal areas
(Level 1 causes -workplace/ standards/ policy/ education/ societal attitudes)
- Stickies that are causes rather than solutions
2. Keep the eliminated stickies.
- Solution stickies- keep for when you do your action plan
3. Look at the stickies (brainstormed causes) within one of the
level 1 areas (workplace/ standards/ policy/ education/ societal attitudes).
4. With the stickies related to the level 1 causal area:
- Identify the level 2 causes of level 1 causes (What level 2 causes
cause each of the level 1 causes?)
- Identify level 3 causes of level 2 causes etc. (Are there causes that
are level 3 causes that are causes of level 2 causes?)
- Continue for level 4, 5 or 6 if they have emerged.
5. Do a cause and effect diagram for each major causal area, for example, Policy.
6. Put the cause and effect diagrams for each major causal area together into a cause and effect diagram for all major causal areas, for example, the Nova Scotia Environmental scan .
It is like the house that Jack built – this is the cause 3 factor
that causes cause 2; this a cause 2 factor that causes cause 1;
this is a cause 1 factor that causes "not enough qualified staff to meet demand".
BACK TO SCAN PROCESS
Child Care Connections
100-1200 Tower Road,
Halifax, NS B3H 4K6
902 423-8199
902 492-8106 (fax)
cccns@istar.ca