Nanny Question: Paying while we're on vacation? (No guaranteed hours)

[Anonymous]

You absolutely need to pay her if you want to keep her. In the future, try to coordinate vacation time. For this time, it's fine to ask her to come while you are away and tidy up, manage laundry and do some organizing, if that was already within her purview before. But paying your nanny every week of the year (unless she opts to take unpaid time off) is the only way to retain a good nanny.

[Anonymous]

Op, what do you mean “ Before Christmas she asked us for a small advance to help cover the holidays, which she's since paid back (through working) and things have gone without a hitch.”

you don’t pay her for holidays? Why did she need an advance over Christmas? Or did she need more money than what you regularly pay her? How long has this nanny worked with your family?

Check with the nanny what is her preference, whether it is to take paid leave (part of her 10 days) while you’re away, or do some housework / cooking / prepping (just remember this is not Cinderella so don’t overburden her with house work), or take unpaid leave (there is enough time to find some part time gig) and keep her 10 days for a different time.

Also, take this as an opportunity to plan for the next 6 months or so, do you know when are your next vacations? Does she know when hers are? If she has some date preference, could you coordinate your vacation to fit hers?

I’d just pay the nanny for 1 week and ask her to pass by house, so laundry, water plants, this type of stuff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My wife and I have a nanny that we really like. She's fantastic with the kids and we want to keep her. We pay her $25/hr in the west suburbs of Chicago, 40 hours per week, plus 5 sick days and 10 paid vacation days. We pay her above the table and everything works great. Before Christmas she asked us for a small advance to help cover the holidays, which she's since paid back (through working) and things have gone without a hitch. We do not give her guaranteed hours (nothing in the contract states that we do) but we do state that her average work week will be 40 hours.

We're planning a week long vacation without the nanny. We gave her 4 weeks of notice I've assumed that she would either go unpaid or would use her accumulated vacation time for the time off, but should have been explicit. My wife disagrees and thinks we should have her come to the house and do reorganization projects or house work. The truth is that there's not enough housework to keep her busy for a full week. She has enough accumulated vacation time to cover the time we're gone, but I'm wondering if it's reasonable to ask her to use that vacation time or not.

We absolutely want to keep her, so need to plan this conversation. Based on context clues she has assumed that she will come in on the days we're gone to do projects here at our house, but we've never discussed it. This is our first family vacation since the nanny started, so I think it will set a precident for future vacations. At $25/hr that will add $200 to every day that we go on vacations in the future.

Thoughts?

I am not a lawyer, but the bolded does give an expectation of 40 hour weeks…

[Anonymous]

My understanding is it is common to specify that one week of paid vacation is to be used during a week of the family’s choosing and one is to be used during a week of the nanny’s choosing.

That’s how friends have done it. I would think you’d still have to pay her if you go on additional weeks of vacation but at least it covers one.

[Anonymous]

In all the Nanny situations I’m
aware of if the family choose to go away they pay the Nanny. If the Nanny needs extra time off behind her agreed upon vacation days it is without pay. You need to pay.
If your kids were in private school or daycare and you took a week off you would need to pay for that week still.
Don’t nickel and dime a good nanny.

[Anonymous]

When you choose to go away, you pay her.

When she chooses to go away, then it's her vacation.

Sometimes nannies sync their vacations with their employers', but this absolutely has to be sorted out ahead of time.

[Anonymous]

It's really simple. If you don't pay her, she will find another job. Just like if you didn't pay the daycare, they would fill your spot.

I was a nanny in Chicago for 15 years, ran an agency there for 5 years, and have had a nanny for my own kids for 6 years. It is absolutely standard and expected to offer guaranteed hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My understanding is it is common to specify that one week of paid vacation is to be used during a week of the family’s choosing and one is to be used during a week of the nanny’s choosing.

That’s how friends have done it. I would think you’d still have to pay her if you go on additional weeks of vacation but at least it covers one.

This was common about 10+ years ago, but not since. It's unsustainable for someone to only get 5 vacation days per year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My understanding is it is common to specify that one week of paid vacation is to be used during a week of the family’s choosing and one is to be used during a week of the nanny’s choosing.

That’s how friends have done it. I would think you’d still have to pay her if you go on additional weeks of vacation but at least it covers one.

This was common about 10+ years ago, but not since. It's unsustainable for someone to only get 5 vacation days per year.

It's only 5 days of "free choice" vacation days. There's also the typical holidays, plus the family's own vacations. That is plenty in most cases.

[Anonymous]

You absolutely have to pay her. We worked out at the beginning with our nanny that she would not get any self selected vacation days, but we are away for 6-8 weeks a year where we keep paying her while we’re gone and we do NOT ask her to do any house work or come by our home during that time, so she’s essentially getting 30-40 days of time off a year + sick leave. So far any time she has asked for a day off, we have actually still paid her in full because she is great and we want to keep her.

[Anonymous]

If I can budget for a family vacay I can also budget to pay bills, mortgage and the staff!! This shouldn't even be a question, you ought to pay her or else she'd quit. I'm blown away that in Chicago it's consider above average $25 hourly, this was the rate of our nanny 7 years ago.

[Anonymous]

You need to pay her if you don't want her to quit, which she should if you don't pay her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My wife and I have a nanny that we really like. She's fantastic with the kids and we want to keep her. We pay her $25/hr in the west suburbs of Chicago, 40 hours per week, plus 5 sick days and 10 paid vacation days. We pay her above the table and everything works great. Before Christmas she asked us for a small advance to help cover the holidays, which she's since paid back (through working) and things have gone without a hitch. We do not give her guaranteed hours (nothing in the contract states that we do) but we do state that her average work week will be 40 hours.

We're planning a week long vacation without the nanny. We gave her 4 weeks of notice I've assumed that she would either go unpaid or would use her accumulated vacation time for the time off, but should have been explicit. My wife disagrees and thinks we should have her come to the house and do reorganization projects or house work. The truth is that there's not enough housework to keep her busy for a full week. She has enough accumulated vacation time to cover the time we're gone, but I'm wondering if it's reasonable to ask her to use that vacation time or not.

We absolutely want to keep her, so need to plan this conversation. Based on context clues she has assumed that she will come in on the days we're gone to do projects here at our house, but we've never discussed it. This is our first family vacation since the nanny started, so I think it will set a precident for future vacations. At $25/hr that will add $200 to every day that we go on vacations in the future.

Thoughts?

OP, do you not pay your nanny over the holidays?

Or did she need extra funds beyond what you pay her for holiday expenses?

[Anonymous]

I have a FT nanny and her benefits are similar to yours. We always pay when we take vacation. It has never occurred to me to ask her to come in and do any housework or projects. She’s a nanny, not an housekeeper.

Our bosses don’t dictate when we get to take vacation, so we don’t do it to her. Also, her family may be unable to vacation with her the week we’re gone. If we were more generous with vacation leave, then I might stipulate that she needs to coordinate a week with us. But 10 days of vacation is standard, not generous.

We also pay when the weather is too bad for her to drive, even though it means we need to use our own vacation days to care for the kids those days.

[Anonymous]

Agree, you pay her for this time