Nannies and sick leave

[Anonymous]

OP here again. I also find it abominable that some parents would want a sick nanny looking after their baby. It's absolutely reasonable to expect that healthy adults would catch a cold once or twice a year. As one PP pointed out, the rate should be even higher for a nanny because they're exposed to disease-ridden kids!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP. How many sick days a nanny takes and number of times late are definitely things I ask during the reference check. Reliability is important to us.

So this means you are absolutely under no circumstance ever late coming home? Your child and you never ever get sick?

I’ve been late due to horrible accidents on 270. My families have been late coming home due to horrible traffic. I’m reliable and flexible bc well, life happens. I have never once held it over my families head when they let me know they were going to be late bc I get that life happens. In turn they have never reprimanded me bc, they want my flexibility to roll over to them. I don’t call out, I’ll work sick bc I rarely get sick enough other than the common cold (only took off once bc one of the kids brought home norovirus from school and everyone got sick). I’ve always worked for awesome families and didn’t realize how truly lucky I was until reading DCUM. Awesome families really are unicorns.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here again. I also find it abominable that some parents would want a sick nanny looking after their baby. It's absolutely reasonable to expect that healthy adults would catch a cold once or twice a year. As one PP pointed out, the rate should be even higher for a nanny because they're exposed to disease-ridden kids!

In a nanny share I was basically sick from November-March. Throw in 2 toddlers and a kid in school and you will keep the common cold for awhile.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP. How many sick days a nanny takes and number of times late are definitely things I ask during the reference check. Reliability is important to us.

Well, then you should know that you may be violating the ADA. Retaliating against someone for being sick is unethical and often illegal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Sorry I don't think I was clear. I found it deeply weird that, when I was following up on references, some parent employers chose to point out that their nanny had never taken a sick day and had never once been late!

Now I'm not American. I'm European. So I was wondering whether it was a cultural thing that I needed to be mindful of when I'm providing her with her a reference in the future.

To me, being late is forgivable. She has been 15 minutes late once this whole year, and she works for us full-time. I have been late to get home and relieve her twice in the same period (again, no more than 15 minutes late).

The most important qualities for me in a nanny are kindness and honesty. My daughter loves her and I trust her. I would also describe her as very reliable, but not this rigid 100% timeliness. She's human, not a fricking robot as some on the parents on this forum seem to expect!

Thanks for the guidance though - there's no reason to quote statistics when I'm providing references in the future! I will just describe her as "highly reliable"!

Your point wasn’t clear in your first post. This post makes more sense and shows you as a better boss than most.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. How many sick days a nanny takes and number of times late are definitely things I ask during the reference check. Reliability is important to us.

Well, then you should know that you may be violating the ADA. Retaliating against someone for being sick is unethical and often illegal.

Nope. If the employer has less than 25 employees, the ADA does not apply.

You can argue about what she should and shouldn't do, but you can't invoke ADA legislation to back you up.

[Anonymous]

OP it sounds like you were in the position to offer lots of flexibility on arrival time and attendance. This is great for you and your nanny but you should be honest in providing a reference. If you lie, there is a good chance that things will not end well for your nanny and the new employer. Your nanny could very well end up fired then what will you do? Lie about her start dates to cover the gap in employment.

I think you have an idea that your nanny may have taken advantage of your generous leave benefits or you wouldn't be posting here. In over 25 years of employment, I have never taken two weeks of sick leave in a year. Honestly, I can't think of any employee who didn't develop something serious (cancer) that ever took this much and I managed multiple groups. Two weeks let alone more than two weeks of sick time without serious underlying healthy problems is a sign of a poor immune system or enjoying quite a few rest and relaxation days calling in sick. Being late 5% of the time is pretty frequent for an hourly job. OP -your job may not mind if you are late or don't have hard standard hours but many people have meetings or appointments and can't be late once or twice a month.

Your nanny either needs to find another very flexible position or she never really needed to late 5% of the time and take more than 2 weeks sick leave in a year.

[Anonymous]

Correction: It was amended to apply only to employers with FIFTEEN (15) employees, instead of the previous limitation of 25.

Still does not apply here.

"The ADA covers employers with 15 or more employees, including state and local governments. It also applies to employment agencies and to labor organizations."
-- https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/publications/fs-ada.cfm

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. How many sick days a nanny takes and number of times late are definitely things I ask during the reference check. Reliability is important to us.

Well, then you should know that you may be violating the ADA. Retaliating against someone for being sick is unethical and often illegal.

Nope. If the employer has less than 25 employees, the ADA does not apply.

You can argue about what she should and shouldn't do, but you can't invoke ADA legislation to back you up.

But state and local laws often forbid disability discrimination for ALL employers, regardless of size. State FMLA laws may also apply regardless of size -- so if you retaliate against an employee for taking sick leave, then you may also be violating that law.

The fact is, it's super dodgy ethically to hold it against a low-wage worker that they took sick leave (especially if it's paid sick leave that you provided for in their contract!!!) And in many cases, it may be illegal as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Correction: It was amended to apply only to employers with FIFTEEN (15) employees, instead of the previous limitation of 25.

Still does not apply here.

"The ADA covers employers with 15 or more employees, including state and local governments. It also applies to employment agencies and to labor organizations."
-- https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/publications/fs-ada.cfm

Cool, now do the DC, MD, and Virginia state and county human rights laws.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. How many sick days a nanny takes and number of times late are definitely things I ask during the reference check. Reliability is important to us.

Well, then you should know that you may be violating the ADA. Retaliating against someone for being sick is unethical and often illegal.

Nope. If the employer has less than 25 employees, the ADA does not apply.

You can argue about what she should and shouldn't do, but you can't invoke ADA legislation to back you up.

But state and local laws often forbid disability discrimination for ALL employers, regardless of size. State FMLA laws may also apply regardless of size -- so if you retaliate against an employee for taking sick leave, then you may also be violating that law.

The fact is, it's super dodgy ethically to hold it against a low-wage worker that they took sick leave (especially if it's paid sick leave that you provided for in their contract!!!) And in many cases, it may be illegal as well.

Sure. And I agree with you. But that isn't what was being claimed.

1. Show me where the PP talked about anything other than federal law (it's in bold up above).
2. Show me where I said anything other than that the ADA does not apply.

I happen to agree with you, but it's not because of legislation -- it's because of ethics, whether that is backed up by local law, or not. And people need to stop making crappy arguments about it using references they don't understand, because that isn't helping.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Correction: It was amended to apply only to employers with FIFTEEN (15) employees, instead of the previous limitation of 25.

Still does not apply here.

"The ADA covers employers with 15 or more employees, including state and local governments. It also applies to employment agencies and to labor organizations."
-- https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/publications/fs-ada.cfm

Cool, now do the DC, MD, and Virginia state and county human rights laws.

Hey, if you want to talk about something else, you can bring that up. I was responding to the ADA claim, which was stupid.

[Anonymous]

PS. To reiterate: "You can argue about what she should and shouldn't do, but you can't invoke ADA legislation to back you up."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. How many sick days a nanny takes and number of times late are definitely things I ask during the reference check. Reliability is important to us.

Well, then you should know that you may be violating the ADA. Retaliating against someone for being sick is unethical and often illegal.

Nope. If the employer has less than 25 employees, the ADA does not apply.

You can argue about what she should and shouldn't do, but you can't invoke ADA legislation to back you up.

Nor is a cold a disability

[Anonymous]

Our nanny has been with us for 4 years. She has taken 2 sick days in that time. I sent her home one other day because she had dental work and seemed to be in pain.

We give her generous PTO, so I think she has no incentive to play things up.