Directors Desk enters child care HR spotlight

A Manitoba company has released what is believed to be the first sector-specific human resources software for early learning centres and child care operations in Canada.

The Curbridge Group launched Directors Desk in April. The platform features a ready-to-use HR toolkit that includes policies, checklists and templates, plus on-demand phone and email support from an HR consultant.

Headquartered in Brandon, Curbridge created Directors Desk in partnership with the Manitoba Child Care Association (MCCA) to ensure the platform delivers consistent guidance, trusted support and clarity. The company invested a six-figure amount to build the product, said Lyndsay Seafoot, founder and CEO.

“It was a big investment for us, but it is needed and it has a lot of potential,” she said. “As far as we know, no one else has created something specific for the child care sector or (brought) this level of attention and service to the child care sector in terms of human resources.”

Directors Desk includes nine modules: hiring; onboarding; offboarding; policies; diversity, equity, inclusion and reconciliation; performance management; job descriptions; salary guide and compensation; and MCCA and provincial resources. Each module includes templates for things such as interview questions, employment contracts and performance improvement plans.

Users can watch videos that address common HR challenges and access a feature that allows them to communicate with, and seek advice from, leaders at other child care organizations.

Each organization is assigned a consultant from Curbridge that is available to answer questions and address users’ needs by phone and email.

Directors Desk is priced on a sliding scale based on centre size, and users can sign up for monthly or annual subscriptions. MCCA members receive a 40 per cent discount.

MCCA executive director Jodie Kehl approached Curbridge about creating Directors Desk to replace an HR management guide the association started publishing in 2007.

The guide outlines best practices, current legislation and the unique human resource needs of early learning and child care programs. The MCCA updated the guide every few years to reflect legislation changes and the evolving needs of the sector, but wanted to modernize the way it delivers the information, Kehl said.

“We (wanted) an HR service so comprehensive, current and interactive that members would not have to look anywhere else for their HR needs,” she said. “We believe that HR practices are intrinsically connected to high-quality early learning and child care.”

More than 35 centres subscribed to Directors Desk on the day it launched at the beginning of April. Since then, approximately 25 more have registered for the service, Kehl said.

Tracy Cosser is one of those subscribers. She’s the executive director at Can You Imagine Inc., an early learning and child care service in Winnipeg with around 200 children spread across five locations.

Even though Cosser has worked in early childhood education for 25 years, there are still HR dilemmas that arise that she’s not sure how to handle, she said.

“I was immediately impressed at how user-friendly it was,” she said. “One of the amazing pieces to it is that it’s always updating, it’s always changing and it’s always going to be current. We’re never going to be behind.”

Started in 2020, Curbridge has four full-time employees. Seafoot named it after a farm her grandfather operated in Scotland. She describes Directors Desk as probably the best thing she’s done in her career to date.

“We are truly seeing the relief and the support that these child care centres are getting,” she said. “Hearing the impact that this is having on child care educators and their teams is something we’re very happy to hang our hat on as a major achievement, especially as a small business in this province.”

aaron.epp@freepress.mb.ca