Rate my job offer

[Anonymous]

When the position starts, the job description will be different for the first couple of months than it will be for the remainder of the assignment.

Pay rate: $19 per hour for 40 hours per week. After a couple of months, we might need up to 5 hours of overtime, to be paid at $27.50 per hour.
PTO: 5 sick days plus two weeks of paid vacation. There will be frequent additional paid time off when we travel, which we will give advance notice of.

Early job responsibilities:
-15-20 hours of child care per week for one newborn.
-Probably 10 hours of other duties per week, including weekly family laundry and linens. Vacuuming main level of home (very small area) and mopping the kitchen every couple of days. Meal prep and/or cooking and related clean-up. Wiping down kitchen counters daily. Taking out trash. General clean-up (we have a bi-weekly cleaning service that handles everything else). Errands including grocery shopping.

The remaining 10 hours most likely will not be used, but will be paid in order to be able offer a full-time position so we can have the same nanny once our needs change to full-time. We might occasionally ask for a few weekend hours for a date night if nanny is agreeable to it.

Later job responsibilities once I return to work:
-40-45 hours of child care per week. No chores except for baby related (baby laundry, bottle washing, etc.). Dropping off or picking up our older child from preschool as needed.

We have a nanny who we have had a great relationship with, but we might need to make a change, as our and her needs will likely be changing in the future. The job is in a close-in NoVA suburb.

[Anonymous]

The overall job sounds good, but I would want more annual sick days since people who work w/young children definitely get sick much more often than the typical worker.

Maybe offer 10 sick days per year....??

Also until you go back to work, it will be tough for you & your new nanny to both be in the house together all day long.

Will you be occupied doing other things during this time?

[Anonymous]

You did not mention paid federal holidays.

Also, may I suggest that you have the nanny ACCRUE sick and vacation time, rather than it being given in bulk at the beginning of their employment?

[Anonymous]

Also, 1.5 time is 28.50 - I assume that 27.50 is a typo?

[Anonymous]

I pay my house cleaner $25/he and what you want is a maid/house cleaner who occasionally takes care of kids.

[Anonymous]

Add in federal holidays and then it'll be perfect !

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You did not mention paid federal holidays.

Also, may I suggest that you have the nanny ACCRUE sick and vacation time, rather than it being given in bulk at the beginning of their employment?

I meant to include pad federal holidays. Thanks for the suggestion about accruing PTO. We are in a situation now where our nanny went through all of hers early on, and so when she has a sick or personal day, we have been paying anyway. I would like the candidate to at least be aware of how much she has/is accruing each week so she can keep better tabs on it.

I think we are just going to offer three weeks of PTO rather than 2 weeks of vacation and 1 week of sick.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I pay my house cleaner $25/he and what you want is a maid/house cleaner who occasionally takes care of kids.

I think you must have misread my OP before firing off your post. The first three months will be 15-20 hours of child care, 10 hours of light cleaning and errand running, and 10 hours of paid time during which she will not be required to work. Then, the position will turn into almost exclusive child care, save for standard nanny chores such as baby laundry and cleaning up things they use throughout the day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You did not mention paid federal holidays.

Also, may I suggest that you have the nanny ACCRUE sick and vacation time, rather than it being given in bulk at the beginning of their employment?

I meant to include pad federal holidays. Thanks for the suggestion about accruing PTO. We are in a situation now where our nanny went through all of hers early on, and so when she has a sick or personal day, we have been paying anyway. I would like the candidate to at least be aware of how much she has/is accruing each week so she can keep better tabs on it.

I think we are just going to offer three weeks of PTO rather than 2 weeks of vacation and 1 week of sick.

*paid

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also, 1.5 time is 28.50 - I assume that 27.50 is a typo?

Yes... thanks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The overall job sounds good, but I would want more annual sick days since people who work w/young children definitely get sick much more often than the typical worker.

Maybe offer 10 sick days per year....??

Also until you go back to work, it will be tough for you & your new nanny to both be in the house together all day long.

Will you be occupied doing other things during this time?

I don't think we can up the sick days without decreasing the vacation days. However, we are considering just offering three weeks of PTO instead of separating them out. I will also say that with our current nanny, when it's obvious that she picked up a bug from the kids, we have not docked her PTO if she needed a sick day. We have been pretty liberal in that sense.

We take a lot of trips out of town to visit an ill family member right now, so just cannot offer more time of her choosing on top of that. However, our current nanny is pretty pleased that she gets so much extra paid time off, which we give her good notice of so she can make plans.

[Anonymous]

This is similar to what we pay our nanny for a baby and an older child who is in preschool 9-4pm. We pay a slightly lower hourly rate and 50 hours per week, which we guarantee even on weeks where we come home early or take days off. I think you'll find good candidates. We are also in a close-in Nova burb.

I disagree on the sick days. When I was a first time nanny employer, a friend advised not to even put a number on the sick days. If the nanny is sick, she is sick. She should be home resting and getting better, and someone who is not sick or injured should be taking care of your child. My friend who gave this advice said that they were really tested on it, as their nanny had an injury within the first month they hired her and missed nearly a week of work. But, she was injured. What could they do? Since then, she has had basically zero sick days in three years for them. I followed her advice and our nanny has had zero sick days in a year with us. If your nanny starts to take advantage of this policy, you have a different issue and # of sick days won't solve it.

I would stick with 2 weeks PTO. If you are anything like we are, you'll plan vacations and long weekends that will wind up giving the nanny plenty of time off. Three weeks on top of that starts to become pretty onerous to cover. We paid $800 to a babysitter to cover the week between Christmas and New Years last year when our nanny wanted off but DH and I were slammed at work and couldn't stay home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The overall job sounds good, but I would want more annual sick days since people who work w/young children definitely get sick much more often than the typical worker.

Maybe offer 10 sick days per year....??

Also until you go back to work, it will be tough for you & your new nanny to both be in the house together all day long.

Will you be occupied doing other things during this time?

Umm, no. Which daycare employee gets 10 sick days? With 2 weeks vacation, that's a whole month off.

[Anonymous]

I think the 19/h is pretty weak. Is this before or taxes are taken out?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the 19/h is pretty weak. Is this before or taxes are taken out?

19 is a pretty good offer in a market where 17-20 is the norm.