Legally, if she has accrued vacation leave that covers the 8 work days she took off or you give all vacation leave of 10 days up front on Jan 1st, you must pay her for them now. However, come June she will not have those 3 days available (unless she makes them up) so you will pay her for the 2 days but not the 3 days of her choice week. You should tell her this when she gets back so she understands that you will enforce this policy going forward.

MB here. Most nannies want two weeks of vacation of their choice. The other weeks you give her are for your convenience (family vacation) and should be paid. Now if you are giving her two weeks at the end of the year and you could really use her, give her the major holidays and ask her to work the other days.

No

You don’t understand the concept of guaranteed hours. She is guaranteed 36 hours of work a week. If you as the employer decide that you don’t need her to work all those hours, you still pay her for 36. If you want her to work those hours, she must work them or take it unpaid or use her accrued sick/vacation leave.

I got into this situation with our prior nanny. I loved her and just kept paying the 40 hours even when she went over her vacation. Then I didn't know how to stop and she ended up being out and paid like 30% of her working days. Nip it in the bud now!!!

She probably got used to all the paid extra vacations!

Why are you paying her for hours off beyond her 2 weeks paid vacation?

No, you don't pay her.

Of course you do not pay her. She is not working! YOU can guarantee her 36 hours but she needs to work those hours. No idea why you are paying her when she takes off all the time. It’s a business/job. Treat it as such.

Our contract with our nanny guarantees her 36 hours a week, plus two weeks paid vacation, with one of the weeks coinciding with our vacation. She ends up taking much more than that and we always pay her in full (for example she was out all last week, she is taking another week in June and then we will be on our vacation the following week. We also gave her two weeks at Christmas fully paid).

So, the situation I’m asking about is: she was out all last week, then called yesterday and said her flight home was cancelled and she can’t get home til Wednesday afternoon (she is abroad). So we won’t see her til Thursday.

Do I need to pay her in full for last week and this week? She is not on salary, she is hourly but as the same time I’m never sure how to handle things like this because we “guarantee her hours.”

In case it’s relevant, we love her, she is so sweet and reliable and this was out of her control, but at the same time it’s very expensive for us and we’ve had to pay to have back up care. We are also parting ways with her this August when the kids are in school full time. We’ve had her since last August.

Would love to hear opinions, thank you!