Introduction
A healthy workplace culture is often described as the backbone of any successful organisation — but in early years settings, it is something even more profound. To explore what truly drives quality, consistency, and wellbeing in nurseries, James Leavesley, CEO of Cultiv8tiv, sat down with Sophie Haylock, CEO of Early Years HR.
Sophie is a Chartered CIPD-qualified HR professional who has spent the past 12 years working exclusively in the early years sector. Her career began as an HR Manager for a group of children’s day nurseries, where she built out a successful HR function supporting 16 sites nationwide. In 2017, she founded Early Years HR, an HR consultancy dedicated to supporting nurseries with both strategic and operational people challenges. Her expertise expanded further when she became a director of several nursery settings in 2019, giving her first-hand operational insight to complement her HR expertise. After the sale of Toddletown Day Nursery in Farnham and Farncombe, and Mulberry Corner in Eastleigh in 2024, Sophie returned her focus fully to supporting nursery owners across the country.
What follows is a deep dive into how culture shapes not only staff wellbeing and performance, but also the experience and development of children.
1. James Leavesley: How would you define a healthy workplace culture in a nursery environment, and what makes it unique compared to other sectors?
Sophie Haylock:
A healthy nursery culture is one where quality, positivity, trust, and responsibility are embedded into everyday practice. It’s built on secure and nurturing relationships between practitioners, children, and families; open communication and psychological safety; strong teamwork; and reflective, ongoing professional development.
What makes nursery culture different from other sectors is the immediacy of its impact. There is no downtime — children are influenced by the environment every moment they are in it. The “product” is human development, and the emotional labour involved is significant. Trust has to be both immediate and continuous. This is a sector where vigilance is constant, and the consequences of poor culture can be profound.
2. James: How does culture influence the quality of care and learning children receive?
Sophie:
Culture is quality. When practitioners feel valued, trusted, and supported, their motivation and wellbeing increase. That stability translates directly into consistent relationships, secure attachments, and emotionally attuned interactions — all of which are essential for children’s development.
Conversely, a poor culture leads to demotivation, higher absence, and staff turnover, which disrupts continuity for children. Parents notice this. Ultimately, children’s lived experience reflects the environment their practitioners work in.
3. James: What cultural values are essential for creating a safe, nurturing environment for staff and children?
Sophie:
The four core values I emphasise are:
- Quality
- Positivity
- Responsibility
- Trust
These anchor everything from team interactions to decision-making and safeguarding.
4. James: How do you ensure newly hired staff integrate into the existing culture effectively?
Sophie:
It begins at recruitment — identifying people whose values align with ours. The recruitment process itself must reflect the culture, which is why I focus on organic, conversational interviews that build relationships, are flexible, and responsive to each candidate, giving us a true sense of how they’ll fit and thrive within a team.
From there, we use a six-month induction and training programme, regular check-ins, and ongoing support. Whether someone is an apprentice or a highly experienced practitioner, it’s about balancing respect for their expertise with embedding “our way” of doing things — especially understanding what is regulatory under the EYFS and what is specific to the nursery’s own standards and ethos.
5. James: What role does leadership play in shaping and maintaining nursery culture?
Sophie:
Leadership is culture — the two are inseparable. Everything leaders do, from how they allocate annual leave to how they give feedback, communicates what is valued. Because nurseries are emotionally demanding environments, trust within teams is essential.
Leaders must create psychological safety through openness, respect, and transparency. They should prioritise staff wellbeing, design manageable workloads, and ensure admin and supervision processes support (rather than hinder) high-quality child interactions.
Importantly, leadership in nurseries is unique because the “expert” on a child is often their key person — who might be an apprentice. Leaders must be humble and collaborative enough to recognise and rely on that expertise.
When leadership is inconsistent or overly hierarchical, morale drops and quality follows. Leadership drives culture every single day.
6. James: Have you seen a strong nursery culture help reduce staff turnover?
Sophie:
Absolutely. Culture and employee engagement are closely linked. What’s unique in early years is that practitioners often stay in poor cultures because of their commitment to the children and their colleagues. When you create a positive, high-trust environment, retention improves — and the difference is dramatic.
7. James: How do you measure whether a nursery’s culture is working or needs improvement?
Sophie:
You look at whatever the nursery considers its key measures of success. That could be occupancy, profitability, Ofsted outcomes, turnover, or HR metrics. Culture influences all of these. If performance indicators are healthy and stable, the culture usually is too. Cultiv8tiv can provide detailed analytics and analysis about the organisation’s culture and because it is anonymous then it is honest. This can help us truly understand what is going on and where the pinch points and so we can focus on what matters.
8. James: What cultural challenges are most common in nurseries, and how do you address them?
Sophie:
Common challenges include:
- Workforce demographics
- Not clearly defining expectations for staff members
- How society values (or undervalues) the role
- Difficulty “testing” soft skills like care and compassion
- Balancing quality and profit
- Under-estimating the role of the leader in influencing the culture
Addressing these challenges requires clear expectations, coaching, strong recruitment practices, and leadership that genuinely understands the realities of early years work.
9. James: How do you foster a culture of continuous professional development?
Sophie: CPD is really part of the job, every child is different, so learning never stops. I work with clients to bring it to life in lots of ways: through focusing on what the statutory framework says so that the foundations of knowledge are really strong and thorough inductions that give a clear message from day one that the setting values CPD.
Regular feedback is important and I use my coaching and personality profiling tools to support this, and I encourage hands-on opportunities like apprenticeships or learning on the job. I highlight to my clients that they must make a point of celebrating progress and supporting it with meaningful rewards, always keeping the focus on real outcomes rather than ticking boxes.
CPD isn’t something extra — it’s purposeful, relevant, and something that actually helps people grow.
10. James: How does strong culture support safeguarding and child wellbeing?
Sophie:
In nurseries, the stakes are incredibly high. Safeguarding failures can have serious consequences, and many serious case reviews identify culture as a root cause of breakdowns.
A strong culture ensures staff feel confident raising concerns, holding each other accountable, and following procedures consistently. When leadership is engaged and training is prioritised, practitioners remain vigilant and responsive.
Safeguarding becomes part of daily practice — not an additional task. Children feel safer, staff are more confident, and families trust the setting. Ultimately, culture shapes how policies translate into real-world action.
Final Thoughts
As Sophie emphasises, culture is not abstract — it’s practical, relational, and visible in every interaction. In early years settings, culture doesn’t just shape staff experience; it actively shapes children’s development and safety. When nursery leaders commit to embedding values like quality, trust, and responsibility, the entire ecosystem thrives.
About Early Years HR
Early Years HR is a specialist HR consultancy supporting nurseries and preschools with all HR needs, including employment law advice, HR policy and contract support, HR-system implementation, leadership training and personality profiling. Founded by Sophie Haylock, the consultancy combines deep knowledge of nursery operations with real HR and people-management expertise.For more details please check out the Early Years HR website here; HR for Nurseries and Preschools