How can you treat your nanny like an employee?

[Anonymous]

I know that my nanny is an employee -- we pay her for her services, she takes time off, etc. But she's taking care of my CHILDREN. We are intimately connected because of that. If she was coming in late every day, or neglecting my kids or otherwise not doing her job of course I wouldn't be able to keep her on. But when I hear people on this board talking about deducting pay for being late 40 minutes one time, or telling their nanny to do X,Y and Z exactly the way they requested or they'll be let go, or other seemingly harsh approaches I have to wonder how that relationship works. I want my kids surrounded by love on all sides. Wouldn't there be some underlying ill feelings in the house if it was truly just an employer/employee relationship where any infraction could mean harsh consequences? I couldn't live like that. Maybe I'm just one of those "good families" that nannies talk about. We just want someone to come when they say they're going to come and love and nurture our kids. If you're a decent human being and have a strong work ethic, the occasional lateness or sick day is to be expected. If I'm stuck on the metro one day and am 10 minutes late, that's okay. It happens occasionally. We're all human and we can figure it out. Just wondering other parents and nannies thoughts.

[Anonymous]

Cool story, bro.

[Anonymous]

While I agree, I do think that nannies (in general) should work extremely hard to be on time as the domino effect is very real (eg nanny is late, I am late, all my appointment are late...) Our nanny has been late ONCE in 1.5 years and she called from the car to tell us about an accident that was holding up all traffic - otherwise she is generally ten minutes early.

I truly love my child's nanny and do consider her a family member.

[Anonymous]

I am sort of shocked that you think it's okay to treat your other employees one way, but feel that your nanny should get special treatment.

[Anonymous]

The "nanny as family" approach works until it doesn't. The best way to make sure you don't have to have a series of uncomfortable conversation is to choose well and have a detailed work agreement in place.

If you have nearly unlimited funds and access to easy backup care, that smooths the path, too, since your stress level needn't go up when something unexpected happens, and you can afford to make things easy on your nanny.

But most of us have, at one time or another, had something (or a series of things) that had to be addressed before we got to the "OMG I have to fire her before I spend another minute in her presence stage."

I have had four full time nannies, two part-time nannies, and three part time housekeepers over the past 7 years (much overlap here). Of those, three were so fabulous and such a good fit for us that I felt blessed to have them and never had a critical word to say. The others ranged from 1 or two quick course corrections over a couple of years to several in-depth conversation about how we could adjust to make the relationship work, to one that I had to let go.

After all of this, even the ones I love are employees in the sense that I am not going to let something that really bothers me go without comment.

[Anonymous]

Because my children's nanny IS an employee. The nanny does not work for fun.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know that my nanny is an employee -- we pay her for her services, she takes time off, etc. But she's taking care of my CHILDREN. We are intimately connected because of that. If she was coming in late every day, or neglecting my kids or otherwise not doing her job of course I wouldn't be able to keep her on. But when I hear people on this board talking about deducting pay for being late 40 minutes one time, or telling their nanny to do X,Y and Z exactly the way they requested or they'll be let go, or other seemingly harsh approaches I have to wonder how that relationship works. I want my kids surrounded by love on all sides. Wouldn't there be some underlying ill feelings in the house if it was truly just an employer/employee relationship where any infraction could mean harsh consequences? I couldn't live like that. Maybe I'm just one of those "good families" that nannies talk about. We just want someone to come when they say they're going to come and love and nurture our kids. If you're a decent human being and have a strong work ethic, the occasional lateness or sick day is to be expected. If I'm stuck on the metro one day and am 10 minutes late, that's okay. It happens occasionally. We're all human and we can figure it out. Just wondering other parents and nannies thoughts.

This is all any of us want. Do you really believe every nanny embodies these traits? People are usually posting here because things are not going so smoothly. 10 minutes late once? Annoyed, maybe, if it's at the beginning of employment. 10 minutes late every other day for the first few weeks? Even you will wonder if you've made a mistake.