Attracting and retaining kaiako in Aotearoa right now comes down to two things working together: competitive pay and conditions, and a workplace that protects teachers’ time, growth and wellbeing. The pay-parity settings give you a funding lever to compete on salary, but they won’t hold people on their own. The services that keep certificated kaiako are the ones that also manage workload, lead well, and build a culture worth staying for.
Why retention matters more than ever
The NZ early childhood sector is operating in a tight labour market, with ongoing shortages and real difficulty attracting and retaining qualified, certificated teachers. For a centre leader, that pressure is not abstract; it shows up as unfilled vacancies, reliance on relievers, and the quiet erosion of team capability every time an experienced kaiako walks out the door.
Retention is not just an HR metric. It is a quality and continuity issue for tamariki:
- Stable teaching teams build the secure, trusting relationships that underpin good early learning.
- Continuity of kaiako means continuity of knowledge about each child and their whānau.
- High turnover drains institutional memory and forces remaining staff to carry more.
Put simply, every kaiako you keep is a child’s relationship you protect. That is the lens worth bringing to every workforce decision.
Pay parity: the lever you can pull now
Pay parity (aligning ECE kaiako pay with the salary scales of kaiako in schools) is one of the most significant issues in the sector, and it is also a concrete tool available to you. Services can access higher funding by attesting that they pay their certificated, qualified kaiako on parity salary scales.
For leaders, the practical implications are worth being clear-eyed about:
- Parity is a genuine competitive lever. In a market where qualified kaiako can choose between services, being a parity payer is a visible signal that you value the profession.
- The funding is conditional on the attestation. The higher funding rate is tied to actually paying on the parity scales, so the decision is a commitment, not a one-off.
- It changes how candidates compare you. When a certificated teacher weighs two roles, the salary scale is often the first filter.
If you are not currently attesting to parity, that is the first strategic question to revisit, because it shapes who even applies.
The funding squeeze leaders are navigating
None of this happens in a vacuum. Funding pressure (for example, modest cost adjustments that don’t keep pace with real costs) makes workforce investment harder. The honest tension many leaders feel is this: the people decisions that improve retention are the same ones that cost money, and the funding environment can quietly push services toward cheaper staffing models.
That pressure is real, and pretending otherwise helps no one. But the trap is treating staffing purely as a cost to minimise. Every reliever booking, re-advertised vacancy and induction of a new hire carries its own cost: in money, in leader time, and in lost continuity for tamariki. Framing the choice as “invest in keeping people” versus “absorb the churn” is usually closer to the truth than “spend more” versus “spend less.”
The non-pay drivers that actually keep people
Pay gets people in the door; it rarely keeps them on its own. The drivers of retention that consistently matter sit alongside pay:
- Manageable workload, including the administration and documentation burden that eats into teaching time.
- Professional growth and development, a sense that the role is going somewhere.
- Supportive leadership: leaders who are present, fair and clear.
- Team culture: colleagues people actually want to work alongside.
- Teacher wellbeing, the felt experience of the job, day to day.
The first of these is the one leaders most often underestimate. When kaiako are pulled away from tamariki to keep up with paperwork, two things happen at once: the relational work that drew them to the profession shrinks, and the workload they resent grows. Reduce that drag and you improve workload, wellbeing and the quality of the day in a single move.
Practical strategies you can act on now
You don’t need a sector-wide funding fix to move the needle this term. A handful of operator-level actions are within reach:
- Confirm your parity position. Decide deliberately whether you are attesting to parity, and make sure certificated kaiako know it. If you pay on the scales, say so plainly in your advertising and conversations.
- Audit the admin load. Map where your kaiako’s non-contact time actually goes. Documentation against Te Whāriki, planning records and compliance reporting are usually the biggest culprits, and often the most fixable.
- Make growth visible. Offer clear development pathways: mentoring, leadership stretch, support toward and beyond the practising certificate. People stay where they can see a future.
- Invest in the team culture, not just the team. Protect time for kaiako to connect, debrief and plan together. Culture is built in those margins.
- Lead in a way people can feel. Regular, genuine check-ins on workload and wellbeing tell kaiako they’re seen, and surface problems before they become resignations.
The common thread is that most of these cost time and intention more than money, which matters when the funding environment is tight.
Protecting kaiako time is a retention strategy
It is worth pulling out the administration point on its own, because it links almost every driver above. Certificated kaiako (those holding a practising certificate from the Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand) trained for the relational, pedagogical work of teaching. They did not train to spend their afternoons fighting documentation.
When the admin load is high, it pushes directly against workload, wellbeing and job satisfaction. When it is reduced, kaiako get more of their day back for the work they actually value: being with tamariki and whānau. That is not a soft benefit. Time protected is the most tangible, daily proof that a service respects its teachers, and it compounds: less burnout, better presence with children, and a stronger case for people to stay.
For leaders weighing where to focus, this is the rare lever that improves the experience of the job and the quality of provision at the same time, without waiting on a funding change.
Bringing it together
In a tight market, attraction and retention are the same project viewed from two ends. Get the pay-parity settings right so qualified kaiako consider you at all, then build the conditions (manageable workload, real growth, good leadership, strong culture and protected wellbeing) that make staying the easy choice. Folding workforce wellbeing into your internal evaluation alongside ERO keeps it on the table term after term. The services that do both will hold their teams while others churn, and tamariki will be the beneficiaries of that stability.
If reducing the documentation and admin burden is where you want to start, that is exactly the kind of pressure Personhood360 is designed to ease, giving kaiako more of their time back for the relational work that keeps them in the profession.