Half-day notice for paid sick days?
![[Post New]](/nanny-forum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
|
Hi, I am interested in how people handle notice for the use of sick days.
We have now repeatedly found ourselves in the situation where everyone in the house and the nanny come down with the same illness (a cold, a stomach flu), but the nanny asks for much more time off than the rest of us to recover. In principle this would be fine if we could arrange backup care. But our nanny handles the unexpected duration of the illness by saying "godwilling I'll feel better tomorrow" at the end of each day when we ask about her condition, and then only letting us know whether she is actually coming the morning of. We understand that the onset of an illness can't be predicted, but do people expect more notice for the continued use of paid sick days? Perhaps a time deadline of 2pm the day before? We want to be fair but at a loss for how to manage the situation, which we have faced repeatedly. We are both employed full time. |
Anonymous
| This doesn't exactly address the issue, but how many sick days does your nanny have? They should be accrued as she works, so unless she has many saved up, this would be unpaid time pretty quickly in situations like this. That may incentivize a shorter recovery. |
Anonymous
| When I worked with a SAHM, I gave notice once the day before at 5 pm. It was the only time I ever used my sick time. At my current job, I have 3 sick days to use when ever. PTO is accrued for me every 90 days so in total I have 4 PTO. I think a deadline is good but if she doesn’t meet the deadline would you still pay her? And as PP how many days does she have a year and are they accused? |
Anonymous
|
Our nanny has 10 PTO to be used at her discretion in addition to 6 standard holidays. She burns through it all and also takes unpaid time between doctors appointments, family commitments, long absences (2-4) for common illnesses, and short vacations. We also give her our vacations off paid. Overall in her first year she had about 5 weeks of paid time off total in addition to a few days of unpaid time off.
We seem unable to get a handle on the situation. She is very good with our son and professional, and works hard. She is a good nanny. He is happy. We thought, if she needs all this time due to chronic illnesses (both real and imagined) and managing her undiagnosed anxiety, so be it. We declined to give her a raise (we started high anyway) and planned to use the "savings" to pay for backup care. But, *how* she manages her frequent time off has precluded our ability to actually schedule backup care, hence my question. The idea would be to make it unpaid time if we are given notice after 2pm and it is the second (or later) day of a stretch of time off. But I wanted to know both how common this situation is and how others manage it. |
Anonymous
| Stupid. You may get sick in middle of the night. You should always have emergency backup plans |
Anonymous
| I would like to know exactly how people are not "stupid" and manage to get same day backup care. We have a network of sitters and also use a paid placement service for emergency care. Neither of us have family nearby. We always tap these resources, but they rarely are able to come through without at least a half day notice. |
Anonymous
| Our nanny also gets extremely upset when we use backup care, insisting that it is bad for our son to have rotating caregivers. So it did not seem to me that asking for a few hours heads up after the onset of a known illness was unreasonable. As we understand it, her position is that we should just be able to drop everything suddenly for 4 days when she (and we all) gets the common cold. |
Anonymous
omg please fire your nanny. no nanny should be mad when a family needs back up care when she's unable to work. she's ridiculous. |
Anonymous
| She is in fact ridiculous in many ways, and also extremely good with our son. Hence the constant hair pulling over whether to keep her, and trying to find ways to do so while staying sane. |
Anonymous
| OP, this sounds over the top. Unfortunately, I think it's time for a new nanny, no matter how great she is with your son. That isn't typical at all, and honestly would have me worried. |
Anonymous
Which part is over the top, exactly, and worried how, exactly? First time parent and its hard to get perspective. Dumping her is a big decision. |
Anonymous
|
Things that concern me (two kids, two nannyshares):
- Burning through PTO and using extensive unpaid time is problematic. Most nannies we know (our own included) tried very hard to avoid taking unplanned time off, and took very seriously the burden it placed on families to scramble backup care. It sounds like this is not the case for your nanny. - Chronic illnesses and (especially) anxiety that is not being diagnosed and treated are not generally great matches for consistent child care, which is critical in a nanny situation. - Getting extremely upset over backup care is worrisome. Our nannies each went out of their way to help with backup care if they were going to be out for more than a day or two, reaching out to friends to connect us with options. Definitely no judgment around what we decided upon (one kid often went to BH backup care, another usually stayed with a parent). You can try letting her know that you can no longer accommodate unpaid time off for anything other than illness, and stick to it. See if that helps (but anticipate that it may not, or that it may provoke frustration/anger if she's used to being able to take that time as needed). Honestly, though, I'd be looking for other options. How old is your child? Can you transition to preschool earlier than planned, or look for an existing nannyshare? It is tough--good luck navigating the situation! |
Anonymous
Bona fide illnesses cannot be predicted half a day in advance. The best you can do as a new employer of a nanny you have not had experience with before is: a) accrue the leave to discourage abuse; b) get a sense of the nanny's use of sick time the first 6 months. If she burns through all the sick time and gets into unpaid territory, you need to consider whether you can accommodate this. Most parents don't have the flexibility to stay home for their own and their nannies' illnesses. Back-up care is elusive, as you discovered, and parents hire nannies for consistency not to complicate child care. Maybe a nearby "young" retired grandparent might be a possible back-up, but that depends on how demanding the children are and how often the need is. You might need a healthier nanny. |
Anonymous
What is stupid is your inability to read OP’s suggestion, which stated that she is considering limiting pay for the second day, and also your inability to see that this isn’t a random emergency/sudden illness, but rather a pattern. |
Anonymous
I am a nanny and I very much agree with all of this. How old is your child, OP? Are you planning to have more? How long do you anticipate needing an nanny? I hate using unplanned time off, no matter how sick I am, because of the burden it places in the parents. And I cannot imagine regularly using more than my given time off, even if it’s unpaid. My employers need consistent childcare and if I took off more than my allotted amount, that would be problematic. |