Nanny is 10-15 minutes late every day but wants to be paid for the time

[Anonymous]

Come on. I manage to be on time every day in LA traffic. Sometimes it means I sit in my car for 20 mins before I start, just so I’m not late and have a cushion. Your nanny can do this. If she takes public transport, she can come early and go to a coffee shop. This is pathetic!

[Anonymous]

“Perhaps you could try leaving your home 30 minutes earlier each morning and see if that would solve any traffic issues. We insist that you be here, ready to work at 8 am, so you need to figure out a way to accomplish that if leaving earlier won’t work for you. At this point, we will be having you clock in and out, so we can pay you for the hours you are in our home and ready to work.”

Is your nanny a actual adult? Has she ever worked before?

[Anonymous]

I would look for a new nanny.

I’d be scared that she would do a worse job with my kids if I said anything more. Or that she’d find a new job and leave me in a bind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Adjust her pay and she's gonna leave. So decide how important that one hour of pay is!

This. We have the exact same situation with ours. 15-20 mins late a day. It annoys me out of principle that I’m paying for time she isn’t here. But, the money is meaningful to her I’m sure while it isn’t to us, so I just eat the cost.

To me, it wouldn't be just about the cost. If I told my nanny I needed coverage at 8 am when I hired her, it's because I NEED coverage at 8 am. If I don't get that coverage at 8 am, then my work suffers, and I could get fired.

Maybe other posters here have jobs where they won't get fired if they are constantly late, but do you think your boss/co-workers don't notice that YOU are late every single day? Is it possible there have been opportunities that your boss didn't even consider you for, because of your lateness? You might not even know those opportunities existed, because like I said, your boss never even considered giving it to you.
Or maybe that's not your situation. But it is the reality for some people so to call it "silly" is ignorant.

But then it’s not about the money. That’s the thing. Either it’s a very important failure to meet the demands of the job (terminate) or it isn’t, it’s just annoyance. I guess it’s sort of bimodal. It’s either incredibly important, or it’s not very important at all. For me it’s the latter so I would never quibble over the money. But if it’s putting you in a bad spot at work, it’s also not about the money, it’s about serious harm to your professional life.

So if it's not about the money, but about the harm to the nanny employer's professional life, how else does the employer stress to the nanny the importance of being on time--if not firing or docking pay?

The answer is firing, not docking pay. If it’s actually very important nanny be on time, this nanny is not a fit, and shorting her an hour a week of pay doesn’t solve anything. That was my point.