FTM hiring a nanny--HELP
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Anonymous
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FTM looking to hire a nanny for one 15 week old infant, approximately 30 hours per week. Please help... I need a crash course on how this all goes down.
Financials: Can someone please explain the financials of a nanny arrangement? Going rate in my area seems to be approximately $15-18 per hour. Is that pre or post tax? Also, we need flexibility regarding the schedule week to week but will require 30 hours at minimum...am I better off paying a flat weekly rate guaranteed or tracking hours? If so, what will the annual cost of this be? Background check: What is the best way to run a background check? Also, many candidates are foreign-born and tell me they are eligible to work in the US. I need to verify this and clean criminal record. What else do I need to consider? |
Anonymous
| Please consider doing a really detailed search (or several) here for answers to these questions. You'll find a lot of really useful stuff if you just dig a bit. |
Anonymous
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Money should always be discussed Pre tax. You can use a tax calculator to guess on what nanny's take home will be, but you don't know for sure. Always talk in gross rates, not net.
You say you need 30 hours minimum per week. How many hours would you need maximum? Would most weeks be 30 hours, or closer to 40 (or more)? Many families in the DC area offer what is called Guaranteed Pay. For example: Let's say most days you will need someone 9am until 5pm. That would be 40 hours per week. If you offered guaranteed pay, on the weeks you only need 30 hours you would still pay for 40. If you needed more than 40 hours in a week, you'd pay the nanny for the additional time at a rate of time and a half because she'd be overtime rates after 40 hours. If you're only willing to guarantee pay for 30 hours per week, there could be times when your nanny won't be available if you need her to stay late/come in early. It's much better to figure out how many hours you will typically need. It's impossible to say what your annual cost will be without knowing how many hours you need per week. Nannies are hourly employees by law. They cannot be paid a flat rate/salary. I can't help regarding foreign-born nannies and their legality because I don't know enough information on the topic. Consider what qualifications you want in terms of CPR, particularly infant CPR. Another thing to consider is what additional tasks you would like nanny to do -- baby's laundry, washing bottles, cleaning up play room. If you plan to keep the nanny long-term, be sure to think about things like ability to drive for future classes, getting to playgrounds, etc |
Anonymous
| Thx. Wish I had more time to research but I'm in the throws of new motherhood with a screaming, pukey infant and slammed at work also. Is there a specific "nanny basics" post that someone can direct me to read? Or is there some blessed soul who is more experienced and has a minute who can summarize how to handle the background checks to ensure safe and legal hire? I'm certain you'll earn good karma and I'll pay the favor forward for someone else when I can at future date. TIA |
Anonymous
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Where are you looking for nannies ? Are you using care.com? They have background checks on the site and you can run them on a nanny your wanting to hire. Make sure you speak to at least 2 references. Meet the nannies in person for an interview. In terms of hiring a legal nanny I would stick to American born nannies just to stay on the safe side. Once you actually hire them they need to fill out a w 4 make sure to check there documents like a passport ect. Also spell out everything in a contract.
You also might want to use a payroll service like home pay formally called Breedlove. It is a great service and I highly recommend it to new employers. It makes the legal side of taxes so much easier as they do it all for you. |
Anonymous
| OP here. Thx. Am on care.com and getting many candidates. Most are <25 years old or foreign born.( In Chicago and many here pay under the table so I fear that is impacting applicant pool). Is care.com background check adequate? I have two decent candidates from the Philippines who say they are legal to work here. Is there a way to verify using care.com? Other tool? I'm very grateful for the advice. Thx. |
Anonymous
I really have no idea about the whole legal to work with thing. I'm an American born nanny so its never been an issue. My employers have all used the care.com background checks with no issues. They typically pay for the $80 one that includes the driving records check Do you have exactly what you want listed in your profile? That seems to help a lot. |
Anonymous
Try this OP for one good starter: http://info.homeworksolutions.com/blog/bid/100136/ABC-Nanny-Guide-How-to-Hire-and-Retain-Your-Ideal-Caregiver But seriously - you really do need to do some research. We all have to figure these things out around the realities of parenting. And it takes WAY more than "a minute" to answer your questions fully, not to mention for you to figure out the variables specific to your situation/preferences/location/needs etc... |
Anonymous
| You should have done your homework months ago. |
Anonymous
| Look up the I-9 form for information on proving legality to work. You will need it for any employee, American born or not. We hand it out at the interview to make sure every candidate knew we were serious about confirming employment eligibility. |
Anonymous
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Pp here again. Also, different amounts of flexibility are possible. But you need to look at things closely from an employee point of view. If your guaranteed wage isn't enough to live on, your nanny will need another position. Much more flexibility is available if your job pays a living wage, but you still need to consider what the quality of life will be like. For example, a part time afternoon job with fixed morning hours is very reasonable. That same job, with rotating hours, less so. Offering a total living wage might mean you can reasonablely change the hours and times, with notice, week to week (this was our job. As I work shift work) but, you still couldn't expect 24/7 last minute flexibility. |
Anonymous
| Op here. Typing on phone! I meant part time job with fixed morning hours! Afternoon job with morning hours makes no sense! |
Anonymous
You are too scatterbrained, OP. I think you will have a hard time finding anyone as crackers as you because the only person who could work for you would need to be equally crackers. |
Anonymous
Nope, 13:43 (me) is the scatterbrained one. I'm meant to correct myself as PP, not OP. Definitely crackers, but I think my advise is good. (Especially about the I-9) |
Anonymous
I gave you a lot of good advice at 17:36, and you didn't answer a single question so people could help you further. |