Parting gift for nanny

[Anonymous]

In a nutshell, how much should we provide to our nanny as a parting gift when finances are tight?
Our child was in a PT nanny share for a year, that went to FT for the last few months (other kid in the share was FT). Our kiddo is moving to daycare for a few reasons - primarily financial. Because of a job change we need longer hours some days, which our nanny can't reliably do, and she increased her nanny share rate from $17 to $22. I have no issue with her charging a higher rate, but a nanny was already a big stretch for us financially, and we simply can't do the new rate, even at 40hrs/week - let alone for longer hours. The last few months FT at the new rate have been extremely tight.
If it's relevant, we're not in DC proper but in a smaller city in the DMV with somewhat lower COL. The other family also got a spot at a daycare shortly after us, so they are also leaving, and I know she hasn't lined up a new family yet. I feel badly and would like to give her as much as possible but am also trying to be realistic about our finances. Would $500 be too little? I'd like to give a week but it's going to be difficult to swing.

[Anonymous]

You pay 2 weeks El Cheapo! Pay 2 weeks and thank her and don’t block her unemployment from you - which hopefully you been paying into

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You pay 2 weeks El Cheapo! Pay 2 weeks and thank her and don’t block her unemployment from you - which hopefully you been paying into

Um, okay. We've tried to be good employers throughout, including providing 4 weeks paid leave and 2 weeks paid sick leave, so I'm not sure why you'd assume that we would block unemployment.
2 weeks would be $2K, which might not mean much to you, but for us it would be a major burden, especially when we've already paid $2K more than planned over the past 2 months (she gave us 1 week's notice on the rate increase, so we had no time to plan).

[Anonymous]

PP 22:19, you really could have worded your response way better and more responsibly than that. If you are a nanny, that gives the rest of us a bad look and things on both ends are tough out here. Currently Nannies do so much more to prove our integrity than parents/families do so comments like yours don’t help the situation. Also, there’s nothing wrong with avoiding vileness in your otherwise informative response.

[Anonymous]

Dear Parents, its a tough one….and I see your concern-it’s understandable that you are leaving the nanny share arrangement due to your financial limitations. First, could you clarify if this parting gift is on top of the severance pay (that is usually offered after termination with little to no notice, not for cause) or is that your share arrangements term for severance pay or you weren’t planning on offering severance pay at all? I ask because my response takes the angle of severance pay.

While it’s understandable that you would want to save as much as possible for your family, you asked for suggestions on what would be a decent parting gift for your nanny and although PP was rude, her response about not blocking unemployment and considering weekly pay amounts, were good ideas to answer to your question.

I think the problem is that you are focusing solely on your reasoning (wanting save/financial limitations etc) and forgetting that your nanny probably is in a similar situation or even worse now that she will lose her job without another job lined up- you know this. Ask yourself what you would feel is the fair thing for an employer to do for you.

You mention that “we have tried to be good employers though” is it to imply that it should make up for covering the nanny’s whole or partial severance? I don’t want to assume so do clarify. But I do want to stress that being a good employer should be a standard expectation the same way you would expect a good nanny (without trying) and part of being a good employer is not only what you do during the employment period but how you end it and how you treat/interact with your employee after termination of employment.

Most families and Nannie’s have a severance pay and notice clause that thankfully from my experience, it was honored and the families went above and beyond my expectations even (which I am grateful for ). If you truly respect and appreciate your nanny (which sounds like you do) and you intend on having a good relationship with her, My advice would be to not try to tip toe around it but to honor this clause if you had it in your contract and if not to seriously consider giving her 2-4 weeks of pay for the following reasons:
-this sounds like the termination is not for cause
-she relies on this source of income and has no job lined up
-she’s devoted her time to your family by providing reliable care so you can work
-she also has financial limitations and concerns just like you do.
-she has to provide for herself and for her family just like you do.

While the amount of money for 2-4 weeks of pay seem excessive for you, again, remember that you just terminated someone’s source of provision and if you had this clause, the right thing to do is to honor it- honoring a clause has nothing to do with the other standard employment benefits you provided (she probably agreed to them without even knowing that down the line you may want to use it as leverage when termination comes and she could use severance or a parting gift as you say)/.

The only time I guess it would make sense not to consider paying her severance for 2-4 weeks is if you had mentioned to her your decision/desire to terminate employment due to your financial limitations to give her 2-4 weeks notice (whatever your agreement was) so that she can try to find employment. But I can tell you that for someone who’s given you reliability, it doesn’t help in ending on a good terms especially because it can take more than 4 weeks to find reliable employment.

Now your nanny really should have given you more notice before rate increases but it still in my opinion doesn’t justify being left with no income with little to no notice after she’s reliably cared for your children for a while. Unless you can consider keeping her for another 2-4 weeks in notice if she’s willing to work…that’s the only tangible idea I can think of to line with the tight finances.

As far as the amount $500– suggestions for amounts were made above and ultimately you knowing your financial situation would decide but maybe another way to think of it is asking yourself if $500 can sustain you and your family for 2 weeks + as you search for a job. If things are so tight that you cannot pull up 2-4 weeks of pay, then I would suggest giving her an amount as close as possible and if you respect her and truly see her situation, be honest about your financial limitations—and also stress that you are ware that she’s essentially going high and dry…give her space to respond in a way that you probably would also if you were in her shoes- termination, no job, no source of income (stress and may not want to come back should you change your mind). She’s just as financial distressed if not worse.
Moving forward, I would use this as a learning experience for next time you hire someone to consider the possibility of severance is the right thing to do.

Just that sometimes Nannie’s become relevant for overnights, date night sitting or just for the simple fact of your children seeing their former carer every now and then, or providing a reference to a future nanny you may want to employ should your finances improve,….or even wanting her back should things not work out with day care. There are so many families who parted ways with their nanny and even though they never used it as a string to keep a tab on a former nanny, the nanny was able to offer to step in or even come back when things didn’t work out with another option…or just became a good friend and reliable figure for their children.

So always remember that the more generous and considerate you are in this moment, even if you don’t see the need, it may pay off in one way or another (even if it’s not with the same nanny). Also this is the moment that shoes many Nannie’s whether they were indeed valued as employees and as people….so I hope this maybe one thing to help you decide whatever you choose to do. I truly hope that things improve for your family financially and that your nanny finds a job soon as well.

All the best!

[Anonymous]

Thanks PP for taking the time to leave a very helpful comment! I want to clarify a couple of things:
1. There is no severance clause in the contract. We used the contract the nanny provided and did not change it in any way. This was not on our radar and I'm not sure it's common around here.
3. We did provide 3 months of notice
4. The position was part time except for the last 8 weeks.
5. This was not intended to be a long term position (and this was clear to the nanny). We were planning to start center-based care around 2-3 (I know daycare centers are not popular with everyone but we have a great center close by that was wonderful for our older child). Our kid is just turning 2. If finances and other factors (see below) had been different, we might have stayed 6 months longer, but this was never a 3-4 year FT position.
6. I didn't want to get into it in my original post, but there are some non-financial factors at play as well (using screens after we asked her not to, rarely taking the kids out or doing activities with them).
That said, we take your comments on board and will see what is possible.

[Anonymous]

Nanny here and I think $500 is perfect. At the end of the day you don’t have to give anything. I did a share for 3 years and one family didn’t even give me a card. The other family gave me $600 and I was very grateful

[Anonymous]

Wow OP!

I think it was very inconsiderate for your Nanny to give you only a week’s notice that she would be charging you $5/more per hour.

Sounds like she had talked to someone and they swayed her.

While I think $17/Hour is really low for caring for two kids (any age!) - I think your Nanny should have given more notice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In a nutshell, how much should we provide to our nanny as a parting gift when finances are tight?
Our child was in a PT nanny share for a year, that went to FT for the last few months (other kid in the share was FT). Our kiddo is moving to daycare for a few reasons - primarily financial. Because of a job change we need longer hours some days, which our nanny can't reliably do, and she increased her nanny share rate from $17 to $22. I have no issue with her charging a higher rate, but a nanny was already a big stretch for us financially, and we simply can't do the new rate, even at 40hrs/week - let alone for longer hours. The last few months FT at the new rate have been extremely tight.
If it's relevant, we're not in DC proper but in a smaller city in the DMV with somewhat lower COL. The other family also got a spot at a daycare shortly after us, so they are also leaving, and I know she hasn't lined up a new family yet. I feel badly and would like to give her as much as possible but am also trying to be realistic about our finances. Would $500 be too little? I'd like to give a week but it's going to be difficult to swing.

$22/hr is very low and if $22/hr was a stretch for you then you couldn't afford a nanny.

[Anonymous]

You gave 3 months notice. I think this is ample and you are not required to give a parting gift. If you want to though I think a gift card to somewhere you know she likes and a card would be nice. Doesn’t need to be for $500 either.

[Anonymous]

Are you each paying her 22 per hr so she’s making 44 or 11 each and in total 22?

[Anonymous]

44 of course

[Anonymous]

OP what did you end up doing?

[Anonymous]

We have had a nanny for 20 years through all our kids and $44 is insane - that is over 90K a year. Market dynamics work both ways - she raised her prices and her families found other service providers. Life lesson.

It would be kind to give her a $500 parting gift but it's been a year, it's not exactly like this person has become "family". You gave her adequate notice, that is good enough in my book for a short term relationship.