Background:A key determinant affecting early childhood educators’ job satisfaction has been identified as the physical and emotional intensity of the educators’ role. However, the availability of personal job resources, such as cognitive, emotional or social resources, can positively influence educators’ engagement in their work role and interactions with children.

Aims: The aim of this research was to investigate what enabled and constrained early childhood workforce retention, and particularly what educators found supported their job satisfaction.

Method: A constructivist grounded theory methodology framed the research. Participants were 34 early childhood educators working across eight workplaces in the Northern Territory of Australia. Focus group interviews and individual interviews were undertaken at a time and location that the participants chose. A constant comparative data analysis method was used to generate categories that were reviewed and refined until there was an overarching core category and two properties. Ethics approval was gained from Charles Sturt University, and the early childhood educators provided consent to participate.

Results: The overarching core category was educators adjust their practices or accommodate educational values and the two properties within this core category were:
1. Hopeful: Educators stated they felt valued and supported by their leader and/or colleagues which led to the growth of personal job resources through the development of educator relationships. For example, Maree noted that some days her role as an educator left her feeling “absolutely cuddled out” and emotionally drained but her personal job resources supported her to find motivation in her colleagues and leaders. Participants identified positive workplace relationships with their colleagues as key to providing motivation and support through day-to-day challenges.
2. Struggling: Educators commented that they felt unvalued or unsupported by their leader and/or colleagues which led to increased stress, communication breakdown and poor job satisfaction. These types of communication breakdowns and stress concerns were most prevalent in workplaces that were identified by the participants as having a negative workplace culture, or poor collegial relationships.

Conclusions: High stress work environments, with high job demands but low job resources, can lead to low educator well-being, low quality care and high staff turnover and attrition within the early childhood sector. The development of supportive and collegial relationships assisted in creating more engaging and positive working conditions, higher quality care for the children and increased job satisfaction for educators.

Implications for children and families: When your educators know what supports they can access to assist them in their role, they are happier in their job and will be better educators for you.

Implications for practitioners: Your job as an educator can be physically and emotionally intense but when you know what personal job resources can support you and positively influence your engagement in your role you will feel more satisfied in your job.

Key words: professionals’ voices, early childhood educators, regional/rural communities, well-being, workforce issues, retention

This presentation relates to the following United Nations Sustainable Development Goals:

• SDG 4: Quality Education
• SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth