Frustrated with sick days

[Anonymous]

Our nanny has already used 5 sick days this year. She calls out at the very last minute and makes us scramble for care. Both working parents can't stay home, so we usually do the BH backup care, but it is always a stressful mess. How many sick days is too many before you would let someone go for this? She is otherwise a good nanny, but the backup care stress in the mornings is about to be the straw that breaks the camels back...

[Anonymous]

5 days this year?
It's only March!
I'm a nanny and that seems excessive.

And for it to be last min.

Is your nanny a new nanny (doesn't have to be young, but is this a new career for her?), her immunity may not be a built up as a seasoned nanny. With that the last min of telling you is not right, yes sometimes sicknesses come on last minute but 5 times since January.

How many sick days does she get?

If she is out of sick days, does she need to use her vacation time or go unpaid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:5 days this year?
It's only March!
I'm a nanny and that seems excessive.

And for it to be last min.

Is your nanny a new nanny (doesn't have to be young, but is this a new career for her?), her immunity may not be a built up as a seasoned nanny. With that the last min of telling you is not right, yes sometimes sicknesses come on last minute but 5 times since January.

How many sick days does she get?

If she is out of sick days, does she need to use her vacation time or go unpaid?

She is young-ish, but not a new nanny. She gets 10 paid days per year to use as she wishes for either sick or vacation. After that, she is able to take them unpaid. It is good to know that it seems excessive to someone else as well.

[Anonymous]

Wow that's a lot. We have w nanny and she hasn't called out sick at all since last July. She's in her fifties and loves with her kids and grandkids and is super healthy. I'm sorry that yours seems to be catching things and definitely about the last minute scramble.

[Anonymous]

It's time for a conversation. If it were one, extended illness, I think you wouldn't be posting, so I'm going to assume it's a day here and there.

That warrants a conversation about "being a good match." That is, you as a family are not a good match for someone who gets sick a lot. This gives her the opportunity to say that it's a run of bad luck, or whatever, or to say that there's nothing she can do to be more reliable. Then you can decide what to do.

I would also reconsider allowing her unlimited unpaid time off when she runs out of PTO. It's no less disruptive just because you aren't paying her.

Also, make her PTO accrue. What are you going to do if she uses it all by May, and then is genuinely ill in November and has a sob story about not being able to afford the holidays?

[Anonymous]

I agree that five sick days in two months is excessive.

Have your children been really ill these past two months & could she have possibly caught a nasty bug from them?

I would talk to her + let her know that reliability is crucial to your family since scrambling for last minute childcare is a huge stress.

She is walking on thin water now.
If she calls out sick again in the near future, then most definitely issue her her walking papers.

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

We've had our nanny for three years and I don't think she's taken five sick days during that entire time. I think you need to get her to understand and respect the position she puts you in when she takes a sick day. It's not like other jobs where you can work from home, or no one else is affected if you don't show up. If she doesn't appreciate that, look for someone else.

[Anonymous]

+1 on setting up PTO to accrue. You can always make a judgment call about whether to let someone take it in deficit, but have the baseline be that sick or PTO time is only paid if it has been accrued to date. Also, then if you part ways for any reason before the year is up, you aren't out the cost of any days she took that weren't yet earned.

I will say that sick days are, by their nature, often last minute, though. If she wakes up with a fever, you don't want her coming in. But I also agree with PPs that our children's nannies were rarely sick, in part, I suspect, because they each had 20+ years experience and had already been exposed to every virus under the sun. Five days in two months is a lot unless much of it is clustered around one more severe illness (e.g., if she got the flu, she might legitimately go through several sick days in one fell swoop--but it doesn't sound like that's what's been happening if it's one day here and there).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree that five sick days in two months is excessive.

Have your children been really ill these past two months & could she have possibly caught a nasty bug from them?

I would talk to her + let her know that reliability is crucial to your family since scrambling for last minute childcare is a huge stress.

She is walking on thin water now.
If she calls out sick again in the near future, then most definitely issue her her walking papers.

Food luck.

Walking on thin ice, not water!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree that five sick days in two months is excessive.

Have your children been really ill these past two months & could she have possibly caught a nasty bug from them?

I would talk to her + let her know that reliability is crucial to your family since scrambling for last minute childcare is a huge stress.

She is walking on thin water now.
If she calls out sick again in the near future, then most definitely issue her her walking papers.

Food luck.

Walking on thin ice, not water!

Technically one and the same...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our nanny has already used 5 sick days this year. She calls out at the very last minute and makes us scramble for care. Both working parents can't stay home, so we usually do the BH backup care, but it is always a stressful mess. How many sick days is too many before you would let someone go for this? She is otherwise a good nanny, but the backup care stress in the mornings is about to be the straw that breaks the camels back...

Five separate sick days or five sick days all in a row (like she was out with the flu from Monday thru Friday of one week)?

Our amazing nanny did contract a stomach bug that was going around a year ago January and was out for five days within her first month of employ with us. Our daughter was a newborn at the time and she simply could not risk spreading it to her. She called us on Saturday after she had been exposed and then did come down with it on Monday morning.

That was over two years ago and they were the last sick days she has taken. Bad health luck happens, OP. Our child's nanny has been a true blessing and we are so very grateful to her so I am glad I accepted that her five sick days in the first month were just bad luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree that five sick days in two months is excessive.

Have your children been really ill these past two months & could she have possibly caught a nasty bug from them?

I would talk to her + let her know that reliability is crucial to your family since scrambling for last minute childcare is a huge stress.

She is walking on thin water now.
If she calls out sick again in the near future, then most definitely issue her her walking papers.

Food luck.

Walking on thin ice, not water!

Technically one and the same...

Only Christ could walk on water. Walking on ice is something anyone can do but one needs to make certain that the ice is thick enough to support weight so one doesn't fall through and drown on thin ice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:5 days this year?
It's only March!
I'm a nanny and that seems excessive.

And for it to be last min.

Is your nanny a new nanny (doesn't have to be young, but is this a new career for her?), her immunity may not be a built up as a seasoned nanny. With that the last min of telling you is not right, yes sometimes sicknesses come on last minute but 5 times since January.

How many sick days does she get?

If she is out of sick days, does she need to use her vacation time or go unpaid?

She is young-ish, but not a new nanny. She gets 10 paid days per year to use as she wishes for either sick or vacation. After that, she is able to take them unpaid. It is good to know that it seems excessive to someone else as well.

In other words, the typical two weeks vacation and zero sick leave.

[Anonymous]

The OP failed to mention that the nanny caught the Rotovirus and was sick for 3 days. The OP insisted she take the 2 additional days off just in case she still had the virus in an effort to keep the kid from getting sick. It wasn't my request to be off for 5 days...

People are such assholes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The OP failed to mention that the nanny caught the Rotovirus and was sick for 3 days. The OP insisted she take the 2 additional days off just in case she still had the virus in an effort to keep the kid from getting sick. It wasn't my request to be off for 5 days...

People are such assholes.

I don't think this post is about you. Five days in a row for rotavirus does not = last-minute cancellations requiring scrambling for backup care. The up or downside of stuff like that is that it's all in a row, so only the first day is unexpected (and with rotavirus you at least know what you're in for). But sorry you caught it, PP--it's no fun.