How to pay nanny who has quit?

[Anonymous]

Report them, and see who's responsibility it was. The poor nanny has no obligation to look at these sorry parents again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is it really the employers responsibility to see that she gets the money, though? Obviously it's the employers responsibility to pay them, but in other jobs, if you quit and don't pick up your check, they are not going to track you down. The paycheck is there waiting for the employee, should they bother to come get it.

Not true. It's common for the company to mail the check.

[Anonymous]

Most places direct deposit and if they don't the final check is mailed. The nanny contacted the parents and asked for the check to be mailed. If the parents choose not to, they are essentially withholding her pay. Mail her her check like she asked and let it go. You can get a pretty good idea of what the problem is by reading this thread. Your package sucks and your job easily bested.

[Anonymous]

Well said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is it really the employers responsibility to see that she gets the money, though? Obviously it's the employers responsibility to pay them, but in other jobs, if you quit and don't pick up your check, they are not going to track you down. The paycheck is there waiting for the employee, should they bother to come get it.

That's crap. In any other job I've had, they've mailed it after so many days. No tracking down needed.

[Anonymous]

OP, I don't want to be rude or jump on any bandwagons here, but I am a happily employed, experienced nanny, and I would say a few things.

1) Mail her the check. You're asking her to put herself in an uncomfortable situation unnecessarily - if she's going to give you any answers, she's more likely to do it from a distance than during an in-person collection of her check. Mail her what she's owed with a note expressing how sorry you are that she's leaving and letting her know that you'd really appreciate any honest feedback she could give you so you can correct your mistakes for the next nanny. Use that language so she knows you're serious about wanting advice/wanting to make changes and you're more likely to get a response.

2) You are significantly under-paying for an experienced nanny in your region. Most of the people here would disagree vehemently with care.com's wage calculator (myself included - in my city, it says $14/hr is standard, and I make $20/hr...) because it is designed to make parents feel like they can afford a nanny, without taking into consideration all of the features that make some nannies more expensive (education, maturity, driving, language, musical skills, teaching or nursing experience, etc.). However, $11/hr is babysitting pay, so I can't imagine anyone other than a HS student getting on board with it. Bump it up to $14/hr and I could see some high-quality college students being interested.

If you can't afford to increase your pay, then I will strongly encourage you to join a nanny share. In this way you could get a qualified nanny, who would be making a living wage, without breaking your own budget. If that isn't possible or agreeable, you'll need to find a daycare, friend, or family member, because there are no decent nannies who will agree to your pay long-term. They will, however, take it when they're desperate, as you've seen, and head off to greener pastures as soon as they can.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I don't want to be rude or jump on any bandwagons here, but I am a happily employed, experienced nanny, and I would say a few things.

1) Mail her the check. You're asking her to put herself in an uncomfortable situation unnecessarily - if she's going to give you any answers, she's more likely to do it from a distance than during an in-person collection of her check. Mail her what she's owed with a note expressing how sorry you are that she's leaving and letting her know that you'd really appreciate any honest feedback she could give you so you can correct your mistakes for the next nanny. Use that language so she knows you're serious about wanting advice/wanting to make changes and you're more likely to get a response.

2) You are significantly under-paying for an experienced nanny in your region. Most of the people here would disagree vehemently with care.com's wage calculator (myself included - in my city, it says $14/hr is standard, and I make $20/hr...) because it is designed to make parents feel like they can afford a nanny, without taking into consideration all of the features that make some nannies more expensive (education, maturity, driving, language, musical skills, teaching or nursing experience, etc.). However, $11/hr is babysitting pay, so I can't imagine anyone other than a HS student getting on board with it. Bump it up to $14/hr and I could see some high-quality college students being interested.

If you can't afford to increase your pay, then I will strongly encourage you to join a nanny share. In this way you could get a qualified nanny, who would be making a living wage, without breaking your own budget. If that isn't possible or agreeable, you'll need to find a daycare, friend, or family member, because there are no decent nannies who will agree to your pay long-term. They will, however, take it when they're desperate, as you've seen, and head off to greener pastures as soon as they can.

This is the best advice you'll ever get.

[Anonymous]

Don't you have her address?

Go there and wait for her. When she arrives home, then confront her.

[Anonymous]

That might be stalking. Ha, ha.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can't force her to give you an answer. I'm also pretty sure that if she requested it be mailed, you have to abide. The reason may have nothing to do with you and could be very personal. It also sounds like she wasn't the best fit for you if your discipline styles were so different. If you keep losing nannies unexpectedly you should look at fit first, and if that's not a problem, I promise you that your compensation package is not competitive and they are too easily finding a better job.

The nanny the OP described seems like the one they fired, not the one that just quit.

OP, just send her the check. She doesn't need to give you a reason why (though I can understand why you wish you knew). Who knows if she would even tell you the truth anyways. I have only been let go once, and they told me one thing yet I heard them talking to another employee about me thinking I had done something which I hadn't. They never mentioned that to me at all. I didn't bring it up. I wish they would have actually let me know the full reason for letting me go (if it did include this other piece of information) and asked me about it. It wouldn't have worked out anyways, we wanted different things and I was a live-in which meant that it really would not have worked out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why doesn't OP know how much to make the check for? If I was OP, I'd overpay, otherwise you may get reported. Not good. Why don't you ask the nanny how much you owe her, if you don't know?

Um...what? In the interview we told her we have paid our nannies between $300-$450/week, DOE, and that based on her experience (about 7 years as a nanny, 2 as a preschool teacher, 10 as a sitter, but obviously in the early years it was low-paying/free jobs with family and friends, which doesn't exactly cut it, lol) we would pay her between $400-$425/ week. We would normally use her about 36 hours/week (4 days/week, 9 hours/day), but we did need her for 10 extra hours this week.

I think you answered your own question then. You take her her hours and multiply by the hourly pay rate. If you do OT for hours over 40, then calculate that. Add it up and write the check. ??? Did you not actually have an hourly pay rate? This is why you need one, it is not legal to pay salary. You can pay "salary" by figuring out an hourly rate, saying that she will normally work 36 hours each week then taking the pay rate x 36 hours = $ weekly pay. Or work BACKWARDS from the weekly rate into an hourly rate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP- Do you offer any sort of benefit package to your nannies?

We really can't. If the nanny has to take off, we have to take off. If we take off, we don't get paid, and therefore cannot afford to pay her. It's that way at most part-time positions.

Nanny was working FT if 36 hours a week. Also comparing a nanny position to a retail/food service hourly position is not the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mail the check "IF"....
Are you deranged?

...did you have trouble reading the rest of the sentence? IF she won't come pick it up. As in, she can get it here or we'll send it there. What on earth is wrong with that? JFC.

What is wrong is that the nanny had already asked the OP to MAIL her the check! If the nanny hadn't said anything, then the OP could ask her to come to get it or mail it to her IF not. But it is rude (and illegal) to withhold the check after someone has already mentioned how they would like to receive it!

[Anonymous]

OP, is this your nanny?

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/nanny-forum/posts/list/275995.page

[Anonymous]

Our ex-nanny is 20, so that couldn't be her. I think other PP's may have been confused by my wording between our nanny that just quit and the one we let go. The one we let go is older, the one that quit is young.

Just to update, while I'm here, I mailed nanny her check with a short and polite letter thanking her for great service during the short time we did have with her. I did say there were no hard feelings, I had found that we were likely underpaying her and I apologized, it was a reflection of my own ignorance and we were sorry if we had offended her. I did also ask that, if she felt comfortable, I would love to hear if there were any other issues that we could work on in future. We have been researching daycare and may go with that, but we will still need some occasional sitters for back-up or dates.