Nannies - would you be grateful for this or am I out of touch.

[Anonymous]

We brought our nanny along with us on a fabulous trip over the holiday - it was out of the country, and just beautiful. We paid all her expenses. All of them. Plus, we paid for all her boyfriend's expenses except his airfare. But, all his meals, he shared a room with the nanny, and they had a rental car (that we paid for). Our nanny watched the kids during the day while they napped (she put them down) and gave them lunch. They had every evening off. Every evening. Even NYE. We even covered all their dinners out (when they were on their own - well, except for NYE - they didn't put that on the card.)

Basically, we had a 3 bedroom place on the beach. We would all get up at our own times, we would make breakfast, coffee, etc and whenever nanny and boyfriend would get up, they'd either join us, grab some breakfast and coffee, or just get coffee and go out the the living area - but she wasn't responsible for the kids. We'd head to the beach and nanny would either come down to the beach and get the kids for lunch/nap or if she was at the beach already, take the kids back to the house for lunch/nap. Afterwards, we'd typically be back from the beach and they did their own thing and we did our own thing.

Well, we are back and the nanny is now seeming to be fishing for some thank you's or some extra money or something because of the trip. I feel like her 'extra money" was in the way of us covering her and her boyfriend's vacation - which is what she practically had. We didn't have to cover his expenses - hell, we could've said he wasn't welcome. but instead, we wanted this to be a vacation of sorts for everyone, including her even though she was on payroll. And for the record we didn't make her come. We offered this to her. and she said yes.

So now here I am thinking she's grateful for our vacation gift to her and her bf and thinking I'll be getting a thank you (which we didn't - not even from the bf) and instead I'm getting these comments/hints about how I owe her something for the trip.

What do you think?

[Anonymous]

Nanny here. She sounds ungrateful! I mean, a lot of nannies do get a vacation bonus, but that's usually if they're in charge of the kids all the time. I would've loved that vacation. Especially that her boyfriend was allowed to go. I had to go on vaca with a nanny family once and it was hell. Crappy pay, no time off, etc. crazy.

[Anonymous]

No trip with employers is ever a vacation for the nanny even with the flexibility you provided and the bonus of bringing her bf. however, she shouldn't be expecting a bonus because she was allowed to bring her bf. airfare, room and board which includes food is always provided by the family during travel and so is normal pay unless the nanny worked extra hours during the trip. In reality she could have had the entire week off with no children and been able to do whatever she wanted whenever she wanted for her same pay if she had stayed home.

[Anonymous]

OP, I think you need to communicate. Obviously, from your perspective it sounds like a dream for the nanny. But there's probably another side or something she thought would happen that didn't happen. Sit her down and nicely ask.

Also, this trip actually sounds like too much - way over the top. Why do you feel like you had to go so overboard for your nanny?

[Anonymous]

I would be very grateful. Your nanny sounds entitled.

[Anonymous]

MB here. Wow, this is a tough one. It doesn't sound like you owe her anything else as paying for her BF to go and not having her work FT hours seems like a pretty good deal, *especially* if she had the choice of whether or not to accompany you. I assume she was paid her normal wage for the time. Usually a nanny on a trip would be paid extra as she is still your employee and available to work for her, so even though you paid for her BF she might have been expecting more actual compensation. You are both responsible for any misunderstanding if compensation was not directly addressed when you invited her on the trip and she accepted.

You do need to talk to her about it. Maybe you can say "It was so great that you and your BF chose to come with us on the holiday and to have you be able to do the afternoon childcare for us, we really appreciated having the help. We hope you and your BF had a great time and I just want to check if you felt that the arrangement was fair in case we ever want to consider something similar in the future."

If she says she feels she should be paid more, you need to be honest with her, e.g. "I'm so sorry for the misunderstanding and we definitely realise now that this is something that should have been discussed in more detail in advance. Because we offered you the choice to come or not, we didn't anticipate paying you more than your normal salary, and if we knew that was expected we actually would probably not have invited your BF as the combined expense would have been too much. But we really wanted you to have a good time and thought since you weren't working full time hours it would be nice for him to come with you."

She may realise that since it was not spelled out in advance, there is nothing more that can be done and to continue to angle for more money now is not realistic/would make a poor impression (e.g. if you are generally pretty generous, does it seem like she is hitting you up for more money now that the trip is over because she thinks she can guilt you into it, realising that you would not have agreed if she had asked for more in advance?).

On the other hand, if she makes a good case or is particularly upset, and you are otherwise very happy with her, you might offer a reasonable additional amount of money and consider it the cost of learning how to deal with these situations in the future. On the other hand, if she continues to suggest that you owe her something and becomes unpleasant about it, maybe you will have learned something about her!

However, one question - did you give her a Xmas bonus or gift of some kind? Because that is a separate issue and that might be what she is wondering about, especially if you have given her a bonus/gift in the past.

[Anonymous]

I think your nanny was fairly compensated for the trip as you described it. However, this situation highlights the need for parents to sit down with the nanny and go over everything prior to making an offer. She obviously assumed she would get paid above her normal pay regardless of whether the actual hours responsible for the children exceeded her normal working hours. Maybe she and the boyfriend reasoned that THEY were providing twice the supervision to your children! Perhaps they felt the obligation to be around for your children during the daytime hours prevented them for really relaxing and taking advantage of the locale. Recommend you sit down with the nanny and ask her how she think the trip went.

[Anonymous]

OP, it's really hard to say without knowing your nanny. First of all, the trip sounds like something that some nannies would really love. We use a sitter that my brother's family travel's with frequently, and she's spontaneously told us about upcoming trips and how excited she is for the time away and for the beach. And she's working many more hours that you required. However, I know i don't like the beach at all and really like quiet time on vacation, so, as generous as it is, I wouldn't enjoy it at all.

Did you offer this trip to your nanny, or do you think she felt compelled to go?

Basically, I think what you were offering was very generous, and I think you could definitely find someone, if not many sitters or nannies, who would be thrilled to go along for no extra pay. Personally, for extra pay, I'd definitely require close to full time work hours! But you really need to be clear before hand that she can say yes, or no.

[Anonymous]

I'm a nanny who has traveled extensively with most of the families I have worked for. I typically worked LONG hours on each of those trips and was compensated accordingly.

It sounds like your nanny was only responsible for the children during the afternoons. I am assuming this is fewer hours than she normally works when home. If she was only working for a handful of hours each day and the total number of hours was less than her usual number of hours I don't feel you need to compensate her beyond her normal weekly salary (again assuming you paid her her normal salary during the trip).

Your family was very generous to include her boyfriend on your vacation. That is a perk that is very difficult to come by. Her expectation of additional compensation beyond her normal salary is a bit unreasonable given the information you supplied.

[Anonymous]

It sounds like a misunderstanding. You looked at the trip as a mutual vacation and footed the bill to have her boyfriend join her. Even though she got a great deal, she may not have viewed it as a gift but as work. If it is out of character for her to be ungrateful in response to your generosity try not to take it personally and make an attempt to clear up everyone's expectations. I will say that for neither her nor her boyfriend to have said thank you for at least allowing him to come along is rude

[Anonymous]

15:29 here again. OP was this vacation that you took part of her vacation time (her choosing or yours) or was it additional time off in which she otherwise would have worked a full schedule. If those days came out of her PTO or she worked on a holiday then it would make sense that she is looking for additional compensation for the hours that she worked.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks for all the replies - Good advice 14:24 I think we just need to sit down like you suggest and talk it out. I like the way you phrased it. To answer some of everyone's questions: I really hope she didn't feel like she had to go. We asked and laid out the plans/work schedule with her. We specifically told her that all her dinners/evenings would be free. Actually, when we talked about it originally, she was supposed to work a little more during the day - like do some activities in the morning/afternoon kind of thing. But when her boyfriend was added, and the week kind of flowed - her work was scaled back. We gave her the option and specifically told her that she could either come - with the lighter workload but absolutely have every evening off or not go. This actually started because she didn't have any Christmas plans and was going to spend the holiday with us. But then, we decided to take this trip and when we told her about it, told her she is part of the family and we'd love for her to still spend Christmas with us, so that is what we proposed - specifically giving her less hours with the kids and more "vacation time." For the record origianally, she would have been working full time (except for Christmas day) for us if we all stayed home and she would have come over either Christmas morning or she was thinking about coming Xmas eve to spend the night and wake up with us on Christmas. So, it's not like she would have had the week off if we didn't go.

She brought up her boyfriend (and NYE) and DH and I talked about it and decided to offer to pay his way, as well as her evening expenses as a Christmas gift to her. And we told her that. We said "why not bring him along we'll cover all his and your expenses as a Christmas gift from us." Originally, we didn't think we'd be covering her "going out" expenses during her evenings - she would be more than welcome to eat at the house with us but we originally thought if she went out to party we wouldn't cover that - basically, we didn't think we'd cover incidentals. Then when her boyfriend was joining us- we thought we'd make that her Christmas gift - but again, we asked her if that's what she wanted. She was psyched and said they'd love to.

It was less than her regular hours; she works full time for us. This was outside any normal vacation time. We have a contract where she gets 2 weeks vacation - one of her choosing and one of ours. This was neither.

I think I'll just come out and ask her the way 14:24 suggested. We are close and I feel we have a great relationship. She's turned us down for things before (long weekends away for extra $$, and other type outings) so it never occurred to me that she wouldn't feel right declining this if she didn't want to go. Thanks for all the advice.

[Anonymous]

Did you pay her the regular weekly pay that she would have gotten had she stayed home and worked? Also, if she had decided to stay home and you still go would you have still payed her her regular pay? Just wondering if she was still expecting to get her regular pay and you didn't give it to her because you thought it was included in what you payed for during the trip. I used to be a nanny and I personally would not had chosen to go. I had a horrible experience traveling with the family I was a live in for. I watch the kids all day in the hotel with a water park. Plus I had to share a room with them and sleep on the pull out couch. Then to top it all off the family felt they didn't need to pay me anything extra because they payed for my meals and flight. I also wasn't given a choice in going though. I quit 2 weeks after.

[Anonymous]

this should have been discussed prior to the trip.

[Anonymous]

You'd have to pay me a large bonus to come on a trip with a family, no matter where it is. To me, no matter how it is laid out, it's not a vacation even if I work half my hours.
Also, I sit frequently for other families in the evening on top of my weekly position during the day, so If I went on a trip with the family and only got paid my regular weekly amount, I would be LOSING money.

On the other hand, it sounds like you were pretty generous with time off and expenses (for the boyfriend and when they went out; not for the airfare, hotels, meals in hotel, etc - that's something you pay for regardless for the nanny).

I would talk to her about it.