Nanny share but starting with one baby for several months - best way to set up

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, this is how our nanny share is/was. It's not uncommon in our area for a family to start with a 1:1 nanny at three months and go to a share later, but of course your nanny must be on board with that at hire. Ours involved two separate contracts--one covered first four months, with nanny taking care of baby 1:1 for most of day and helping with family's older child for two set hours per day. One child rate for baby hours, two child share rate for older child hours, all spelled out. When we joined, there was a new contract to spell out share setup. Two child rate for all hours--same two hours with older child and then our time filled the balance of the day. Had they found a share family who needed FT, agreement was no more older child care.

The maternity leave part is a bit messy, but I like the retainer solution. We did start PT in our share for a short period because of work schedule, and I guess that more or less amounted to the same thing, though we had set hours--other family paid one child hours less the hours we needed at the one child rate, and then half of the two child rate for the hours we needed. It got simpler when we went to full-time and all hours were at the same rate, just paid by different people depending on time, though. Main key to making it work is writing it all down and being sure everyone agrees. (The other family in our share also proposed this all at the interview stage since they wanted solo care but knew they wanted to transition to share care, too.)

OP here - thanks for chiming in. So as far as the older child rate vs. the baby rate, the only reason that I was thinking to do a blended rate for the whole day was to make the overtime calculation make sense. So instead of saying for example, we would pay you $17/hour for 7 hours, then $20/hour for 2 hours, and then trying to calculate the overtime hour based on one of those base rates, we would say (since the hours for the older child would be fixed), we would pay you $17.67/hour, that includes 2 hours of watching older child, and the overtime hour would be paid at $26.50. Maybe this isn't the right way of doing this.

You are making things way too freaking complicated. Your nanny would have to be a rocket scientist to follow all of your mathematical acrobatics. Pay a rate for the job you are offering (care for baby, pick up older kid) and be done. $17.50/hour. Bam. Calculate the OT based on that rate. Easy. Now walk away from the calculator.

OK, rounding it makes sense yes. Thanks. Again my intention isn't to confuse or 'scam' anyone, just to do what is fair, legal, and straightforward. Not sure why someone would think I am out to scam anyone.

[Anonymous]

OP, you are NOT the scammer here. It's the mb talking about her BLENDED rate. Another code phrase is AVERAGE rate.
That kind of deception is illegal and they know it.

[Anonymous]

OP, you are NOT the scammer here. It's the mb talking about her BLENDED rate. Another code phrase is AVERAGE rate.
That kind of deception is illegal and they know it.

NP here. There is nothing illegal about averaging a rate and breaking down the average to show the nanny the base and OT and how they are accommodated in an average rate.

[Anonymous]

I'm the one who posted about the blended rate. That's done explicitly to *comply* with the law, not to break it. You MUST pay time-and-a-half for overtime. In our case, the number of regular hours and overtime hours are spelled out in the contract, and the rate for each is based on that ($20 and $30, respectively). However, from our nanny's perspective, what she cares about is the average rate per hour--which is $22, in our particular case (36 regular hours, 8 over-time hours, rounded up).

What would be scamming her would be offering her to pay $22 an hour and then asking her to work more than eight hours a day at the same rate. Which is why we don't do that.

We use the blended rate because it's simpler for everyone involved, but obviously if you don't have set hours or are just more comfortable working with two separate rates, that's fine too. At the end of the day, what matters is that everyone understands what the actual rates are.

[Anonymous]

Funny how it's ALWAYS the employers talking about these BOGUS PAYMENT SCHEMES. But now we'll get a thread from a pretend nanny, saying how much she LOVES her blended pay rate.

Where else you do get away with this sh*t?

[Anonymous]

Huh? There's absolutely no difference between a blended rate based on set overtime and regular time hours, and a lower rate for one set of hours and 1.5x that rate for the contracted OT hours. The math is all the same. If you don't like blended rates, then just give people your salary in terms of what the contract actually says--you make $20 an hour, but you get paid 1.5x that, as required by law, for OT hours. It doesn't make any difference to me as an employer, since at the end of the day your paycheck is the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Huh? There's absolutely no difference between a blended rate based on set overtime and regular time hours, and a lower rate for one set of hours and 1.5x that rate for the contracted OT hours. The math is all the same. If you don't like blended rates, then just give people your salary in terms of what the contract actually says--you make $20 an hour, but you get paid 1.5x that, as required by law, for OT hours. It doesn't make any difference to me as an employer, since at the end of the day your paycheck is the same.

If it makes no difference to you, then stop the crap. Every hourly worker has a hourly pay rate. No one else creates "blended" rates for OT.
No one.

[Anonymous]

Federal law requires that every hourly worker be paid overtime, and our state requires daily overtime. Hourly workers do *not* have flat rates for all of the time worked, if they are being paid legally. I don't know where you got that idea.

We pay over the table, and thus we are required to pay time and a half for over 8 hours in a day. The job was advertised as $20/hour with OT for guaranteed hours, which is the going rate for a two-child share where we live, so no one is being short-changed here. Whether you want to think about it as a job that pays $20 an hour with overtime or a job that pays $22 an hour for all of your hours is entirely up to you. Our share is set up in a way that works for the nanny and the families; you might want to do something different with the families you work with, and you're free to tell them that.

[Anonymous]

Ok, here's the thing PP.

When these employers make a job offer to a candidate, they will offer $17.60/hr as their rate and indicate that OT (1.5) will be paid for all hours beyond 40. Then they'll say how many hours per week they will guarantee. That's it. They won't try to explain the why, they'll simply say what they are willing to pay. They'll make their offer and the nanny can accept the rate (and weekly income) or not. I think the issue is you're looking behind the curtain and would rather not know this is how people work out a budget, but it is. A family decides they can afford $XYZ per month for childcare (or car payments, or their mortgage...) and break that down into what they can afford. Then they offer that. It isn't at all nefarious.

From the nanny perspective, as a nanny myself, I know where you're coming from. You feel that if a nanny is worth $20/hr and the family offers the $17.60 because they couldn't afford her with 10+ hours of OT each week, that it's devaluing the nanny. It is absolutely about the family making an offer they can afford but the nanny is in complete control deciding whether she wants this job or not. If she can find another family she clicks with that can offer her regular $20/hr plus OT of course she'll take that position. As she should. But if she decides this job is worth lowering her hourly rate for, because of the OT or the short commute or the long-term prospects or whatever she cares about, that's nothing to you or me. Please trust us to know what is best for us, and we will assume you know how to get what you want too.

[Anonymous]

ETA I just pulled those numbers out of nowhere to clarify my point, not trying to suggest that is exactly what anyone here is offering.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Huh? There's absolutely no difference between a blended rate based on set overtime and regular time hours, and a lower rate for one set of hours and 1.5x that rate for the contracted OT hours. The math is all the same. If you don't like blended rates, then just give people your salary in terms of what the contract actually says--you make $20 an hour, but you get paid 1.5x that, as required by law, for OT hours. It doesn't make any difference to me as an employer, since at the end of the day your paycheck is the same.

If it makes no difference to you, then stop the crap. Every hourly worker has a hourly pay rate. No one else creates "blended" rates for OT.
No one.

Why are nannies the only hourly workers in the country who have blended rates?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Huh? There's absolutely no difference between a blended rate based on set overtime and regular time hours, and a lower rate for one set of hours and 1.5x that rate for the contracted OT hours. The math is all the same. If you don't like blended rates, then just give people your salary in terms of what the contract actually says--you make $20 an hour, but you get paid 1.5x that, as required by law, for OT hours. It doesn't make any difference to me as an employer, since at the end of the day your paycheck is the same.

If it makes no difference to you, then stop the crap. Every hourly worker has a hourly pay rate. No one else creates "blended" rates for OT.
No one.

Why are nannies the only hourly workers in the country who have blended rates?

They're not. Some unions use blended rates, and many hourly professions do. Both the feds and many states have instructions on their website about how to calculate these rates in a way that complies with the law. The point is that you must be transparent about what the actual base rate of pay is so that a worker understands that he/she is receiving overtime pay for hours above and beyond base hours, and your final pay must comply with whatever state or federal laws you are subject to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Huh? There's absolutely no difference between a blended rate based on set overtime and regular time hours, and a lower rate for one set of hours and 1.5x that rate for the contracted OT hours. The math is all the same. If you don't like blended rates, then just give people your salary in terms of what the contract actually says--you make $20 an hour, but you get paid 1.5x that, as required by law, for OT hours. It doesn't make any difference to me as an employer, since at the end of the day your paycheck is the same.

If it makes no difference to you, then stop the crap. Every hourly worker has a hourly pay rate. No one else creates "blended" rates for OT.
No one.

Why are nannies the only hourly workers in the country who have blended rates?

I take that back. Google it. What does it really mean?
"Mixed up." Indeed. Creative financing. How to get what you can't afford?

[Anonymous]

Good grief--if you don't like the base pay rate being offered or don't want to work the OT hours, just don't take the job. Problem solved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Good grief--if you don't like the base pay rate being offered or don't want to work the OT hours, just don't take the job. Problem solved.

Why even create the drama of all this silliness in the first place? Why not just keep it simple and honest?