Globegarden welcomes unannounced inspections

The postulate passed by the city council of the city of Zurich this week to strengthen the daycare supervision and an associated increase in resources meets with clear approval from globegarden. "For years, we have been committed to ensure that all daycare centers are monitored according to the same standards. This is the only way to make the quality of the individual daycare centers comparable," says the co-managing director of globegarden, Christina Mair. The responsible daycare center managers and the employees are used to unannounced supervisory visits, the official representatives are always welcome, she affirms. We have had experience with this for about ten years. What has been disturbing so far, however, is that a few daycare centers have been inspected very frequently, while others have hardly ever been inspected unannounced. "In recent years, almost half of the unannounced inspections have taken place in our daycare centers, even though we only offer 8 percent of the childcare places in the city," says Mair. None of these inspections revealed any significant quality problems.

Awarded by independent expert reports

A study carried out by KPMG on behalf of the Social Department of the City of Zurich to review the impact of the new ordinance childcare in private daycare centers in the city of Zurich with subsidized childcare places showed in the summer of 2021 in a benchmark market comparison that globegarden clearly stands out as a quality provider in the market. For example, globegarden employs far more specialists per childcare place offered than the average of all other providers, fewer interns are used and the employee salaries in certain functions are in part substantially higher than the average of all institutions examined in the city of Zurich.

Globegarden also voluntarily has its own facilities regularly audited by external experts. Thus, globegarden has been undergoing a strict ISO 9001 certification for years, conducts independent quality audits and has only recently been awarded as a Great Place to Work. This certifies an above-average satisfaction of the globegarden staff with the workplace and employment conditions compared to other companies in Switzerland.

Fair and clear framework conditions for all

"Regardless of this, we are of the opinion that additional specifications are needed in order to achieve a generally higher quality in the entire market. This must also be compensated accordingly via the financing model," emphasizes Mair. Globegarden is therefore participating in a working group of the city of Zurich that is dealing with the revision of the childcare ordinance, which is scheduled to come into force in 2024. Mair comments: "Our goal is very clear: We want to offer children and parents the highest possible level of quality, while maintaining fair and clear framework conditions that apply to all operators."