PURPLE POST June 2022

A warm welcome to the June edition of Purple Post.

The time is just flying by, and we are halfway through the year already! Many of our colleagues are still talking about how much they enjoyed the Parenta Inspiration Conference and how connected they feel with their colleagues and how we continue to change children’s lives. Before we know it, we will be looking forward to our Christmas social gathering!

We’ve got some fabulous pictures of the adventures the Parenta Bear has been on; and some really funny photos from our team lunches. More on those later, but first – updates from some of our teams:

Update from the Software Development team

The following four major improvements have been made to Abacus:

• Automatically populated tax-free childcare reference number - the tax-free childcare reference number is now automatically populated within the Ref No field when creating new Tax-Free Childcare payments.

• Child Name column added to Mail Merge - a new Child Name column has been added to Mail Merge.

• Update Parent Portal carer email address - the email address for carers who have incorrectly added or want to change the email address used to login to Parent Portal can now be updated within the Abacus Parent Portal tab.

• HEIC image support for Carer and Child photo uploads - this image format can be the default format used within the latest phone and tablet devices. It’s now possible to upload HEIC formatted images for carer and child profile photos in Abacus.
  
  

Hot off the Press.....Dayshare is getting a modern, consistent new look and feel! 

What are the key differences between the current and new look Dayshare? 

The new look Dayshare will have a very familiar look and feel - similar to our  Footsteps 2 product:  

• New navigation header - an icon in the top left of the page will represent each page.
  The page currently selected will be underlined. 

• Child images - a thumbnail image of each child from Abacus will be displayed within every page to visually identify a child.
  If a child does not have a photo in Abacus, a silhouette placeholder image will be displayed. 

• Font styles and colour - there are new modern font styles and soft colours throughout!

Will it work differently?

The position of buttons and the current user journey will remain the same for most parts of the system.
There are just a few very minor differences, as follows:

- Select carer button for drop off and pick up will only be displayed when a child is marked In or Out.

- Settings, Help, Logout options are now easily accessible in the top right-hand corner of Dayshare.

When will this be ready to use?

The new look Dayshare is planned to go live this month (July)!

Our very own ‘digital nomad’ David Remon is now part of the Parenta family.
His remit is to teach maths - and already has a number of learners he is contacting to start sessions imminently.

International Self-Care Day – 22nd / 24th July

Self-care includes taking care of your whole self on perhaps a physical, emotional, social, mental, spiritual or practical level, and making it work to suit your individual needs. This may be as simple as taking time out to sit and read, walk the dog, have a relaxing bath, meet friends for a drink, or even walking with llamas! Importantly, self-care is flexible, and is certainly not a selfish activity; you will reap the benefit of a healthier mind and body and be better placed to support those around you.

To Observe International Self-Care Day

As 24th July falls on a weekend, we will be observing International Self-Care Day on Friday, 22nd July, and throughout July we will be promoting self-care and wellbeing. We would love you to join us, so how about:

• Taking the 30-day Self-Care Challenge, or create your own and share it on the Parenta Facebook Group, or via Teams on Parenta Group General Share?
• Completing the survey on 1st July and perhaps consider new ways to practise self-care?
• Trying out different meditations or relaxation techniques which we will share with you every week in July?
• Reviewing and sharing your favourite way of practising self-care; uploading your photos to the Parenta Facebook Group or Teams?

Read the People Team’s full guide to International Self-Care Day here.  It includes the challenge and survey mentioned above.

Samaritans Awareness Day – 24th July 2022

The Samaritans is a charity dedicated to supporting those who need someone to talk to. Whatever you’re going through, if you feel like you need someone to talk to, you can call the Samaritans 24 hours a day 365 days a year. You can call them at any time and for any reason and they will listen to you.

24th July 2022 is a day dedicated to The Samaritans to raise awareness of the work they do. Not only do they provide a safe helpline for people to call, but they are also campaigning for a suicide-safer internet and have helped to work on an Online Safety Bill which was introduced to parliament in March 2022. They are also committed to tackling suicide and have worked closely with people who have contacted them, been affected by suicide, or have had suicidal thoughts or feelings to develop a strategy and identify their priorities.

For more information on the Samaritans, please visit www.samaritans.org or if you feel like you need to talk to someone, you can call them on 116 123.

Check out their online shop here!

Ju-bear-lee: the adventures of the Parenta Bear

You have been sending in your pictures of the Parenta Bear adventures; and some of the activities the bear has been doing have been fantastic! Here are a few recent ones, but you can find more on our intranet social pages here.

A special mention must go to Nicholas Nartey for his adventurous Jubilee weekend activities! 

Getting to know your Parenta colleagues!

The team Virtual Lunches were a huge success, with some departments really going to town and making theirs face to face! Here are a few pictures, and again, you can find a wider selection on our intranet social pages here.

Keep those high fives coming!

Kudos winner for June is Chris Dale! Huge congratulations, Chris!

Don’t forget you can start voting for our July employee of the month already. Keep that Kudos coming and please give recognition for all the hard work our colleagues are doing.

“Very fast response from the team/people who have responded to me today. Jamie Atkins and Aaron Hall have been more than helpful today and have passed the issue on to the IT team. Aaron has notified me and said he will be in touch with updates. I am very pleased.”

“Excellent help and response.”

“Fantastic service - as usual!! My query was dealt with professionally and promptly as always. Many thanks for your help.”

“Excellent customer service and gave options on how to solve my dilemma.”

“We always get excellent support from Parenta and queries are answered promptly or sorted out online quickly. Thank you to Rosie for her continued support.”

“Quick and friendly responses to my query. All resolved with a couple of emails. Good service”

“Fast response, friendly and helpful.”

“Extremely helpful, supportive and efficient.“

“Always reply promptly, thank you”

1.     Don’t forget to use the staff intranet! It is a treasure chest of resources all ready and waiting for you to use.

2.     When sending documents to the Marketing team for creating and/or branding, please ensure that the FINAL version which has been approved and signed off by all relevant parties and line managers – including those from other teams – is sent to the team. Please ensure that the correct data with all the required fields is included as a CSV file. This will avoid re-work and delay in returning the documents back to you.

Thank you!

Resources to help us, our learners, and our settings

A reminder that all Parenta resources can be found here on our staff intranet, all in one handy place.

We publish additional industry expert advice, news articles and crafts in our free magazine and on our blog.

Here are this month’s How to Guides and documents that have been added to the staff intranet:

The Power of a Google Review

The positive endorsements we receive from existing customers are not only a great way for giving praise to an individual or team but are a powerful marketing tool to attract new customers!

In the past, we’ve requested testimonials to be posted on our website. Thanks to our Remarkable Parenta People, we now have a plethora of glowing reviews on parenta.com.

Now though, we must shift our focus to Google. 

We know that our current Google review rating does not reflect all our hard work and effort, so we are going to change that.

Can we ask all customer facing teams to request for a Google review when you have a positive interaction with a customer? If they are willing to send in a short testimonial then, please click on the Google review button above to retrieve the NEW LINK.

We understand that not everyone will have a Google account, if that is the case then can we request a review on our Facebook page instead? Please click the Facebook review button above to retrieve the link.

By all of us doing this, we can dramatically change our public ratings which will help attract even more customers! 

If there is anything the Marketing team can do to support you on this, please reach out to marketing@parenta.com.

Parenta Magazine

Our free monthly magazine is packed with news articles and advice pieces - all of which are written to help nursery managers with the efficient running of their settings and to promote the health, happiness and well-being of the children in their care. Please do read it and send the magazine link to your contacts.