In 2008, new parent Clare Roberts was struggling to find a suitable nursery, so she opened her own, Kids Planet. Right from the start, she knew that an engaged team would be critical for success, particularly in a sector with historically low pay and—as anyone who’s tried to look after more than two children at once can attest—high stress.
The nursery did well, so Kids Planet began to expand. There were 16 sites in 2016, when Roberts first took minority private equity funding from BGF, later selling a majority stake to Fremman in 2021, remaining as CEO. Since then, the chain—she prefers ‘family’—has grown to 252 sites around the U.K., primarily through acquisition.
Given the importance of culture to employee engagement, this created a challenge for the firm, which features on Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For – Europe list 2025.
It’s hard enough to ensure that a culture is consistent across thousands of employees, particularly when the CEO and founder can’t be in 252 places at once. It’s harder still when a large proportion of the nurseries are staffed by people who, by definition, haven’t been part of that culture for very long.
For Roberts, keeping culture consistent through M&A-led growth begins with values. “My values as a new parent 17 years ago have been the foundation blocks that our values and our culture have grown out of,” she says.
“Values are a bit like campfire stories – if you’re not careful, they get really diluted. And, they’re not at the forefront of what everyone’s goals and aims are,” says Roberts. “So we did quite a big piece of work a few years ago, where we tried to get our values into a place that was easily recognizable for colleagues.”
Roberts’ winning workplace strategy at Kids Planet is now encapsulated in the acronym CARE: Community, A safe place, Reflective, and Excellent. “For us it’s about getting things right for our colleagues, to make a difference for them, the children that we’re looking after and for the learners that sit within our organization,” she says.
To ensure it remains at the core of the workplace culture, everyone who works for Kids Planet is seen as a brand ambassador, with a responsibility to represent its values.
Selective shopping
Bringing new teams around to Kids Planets’ culture is easier, of course, when the acquired company’s culture isn’t greatly different. Roberts has learned to select carefully before signing.
“When you make an acquisition, the things that are important to us might not have been important to someone else before,” she says. Unfortunately, while it’s therefore wise to look for similar cultures and values in particular, it’s not always practical. “It’s really difficult until something becomes part of your culture to understand how things are [different].”
Roberts says that, despite her best efforts, she expects to have to make adaptations after a purchase has been completed. “We had a number of nurseries in the Liverpool region which were part of a group and people were just a bit disrespectful to each other and didn’t respect the management team.
“For us it’s about getting things right for our colleagues, to make a difference for them, the children that we’re looking after and for the learners that sit within our organization.”
Clare Roberts
“We had to go back to the basics of talking to everyone one by one and drawing a line under what had gone on before and talking about the basics of our values to move forward, and then kept revisiting to make sure behaviors changed,” Roberts says.
An ‘Early Years’ company
Being a great place to work is about structure as well as culture, whether the business in question is listed, family-owned or private equity-backed. Kids Planet prides itself on being an ‘Early Years’ company, meaning it supports those starting out in their careers with apprenticeships and training tools. Roberts says this remains a particularly important part of her business, given “the care sector is often seen by others as not being a professional sector or not one where there are career opportunities.”
This support also ensures that Kids Planet has high employee retention rates, which Roberts says is valuable in a nursery environment where parents and children value consistency in their carers.
Other benefits that aid retention rates are enhanced annual leave entitlement and enhanced policies in terms of childcare, along with leave for maternity, paternity, adoption and fertility treatment. “We make sure we look after our employees so that people come to us and stay with us,” says Roberts.
