Family Tree Crèche has achieved Great Place to Work Certification, becoming the first crèche or childcare facility in Ireland to do so, giving HR teams in early years childcare a verified, staff-led benchmark for workplace culture.

Family Tree Crèche is the Limerick Enterprise Development Partnership’s crèche at Roxboro in Limerick, established in 2005 to give parents on the Southside of the city opportunities to gain employment, with a team of 16 and a custom-designed facility of more than 4,000 square feet. Financial figures are not publicly available.

Great Place to Work Ireland runs the national employer-recognition programme, which validates company culture using direct employee feedback.

The strategic logic uses employee feedback as evidence. Certification follows a confidential staff survey, the Trust Index, which assesses employees’ experiences across areas including trust in management, respect, fairness, pride and teamwork.

According to the announcement, the certification demonstrates the importance of investing in staff wellbeing, professional development and a workplace culture built on trust, respect and collaboration.

The structural driver is retention pressure: Pobal reports 24.5% national staff turnover in early years and school age care settings, rising to 37% in some areas, according to Early Childhood Ireland.

Pobal’s 2024/2025 survey found 76% of settings reported staff vacancies in the previous 12 months, and earlier data showed that among educators who left their jobs, 34% left the sector entirely and 22% emigrated.

The facility plays an important role in supporting working families and the wider Limerick community, providing childcare for children aged six months to five years.

The crèche is compliant with the Síolta and Aistear guidelines and provides hot meals and snacks from its own kitchen.

In Great Place to Work Ireland’s Best Workplaces assessment, the Trust Index measures credibility, respect, fairness, pride and camaraderie, and is paired with a Culture Audit of employer policies and practices.

For the sector, the certification shows a community childcare provider using a confidential staff survey to evidence workplace culture, a model that other early years employers can use to benchmark staff experience.

Source: Live 95 FM / I Love Limerick / Early Childhood Ireland