What is the understanding regarding "guaranteed hours"?

[Anonymous]

Hi all, does anyone have a sample guaranteed hours contract I can compare with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm the OP on this thread. I didn't negotiate for sick or vacation days - I'll take my unpaid vacation when the employer family leaves town on their vacation. I'm actually okay with that - it's what I agreed to - I'm just frustrated that every time they take the baby to the doctor or want to spend a morning with him, I'm told that they don't need me but will offer to have me work another time to make up for the hours I lost.

I'll know better with my next job. But with this job, I feel confident now that I can ask them to pay me for the hours they decided they don't need me without working them off at another time as we did agree to a set number of guaranteed hours and a set weekly schedule.

Thanks!

Op, if it is within the same week and you are able to make it, it should be fine. If you are not able to work at a different time, then they still should pay you the hours. In my case, 35 hours are guaranteed and nanny gets them whether she works 20 or 0 hours that week. But sometimes I ask her to change her schedule, example, work on a Day X instead of Day Y, so I do not pay her extra because it is not her regular day. She still gets the minimum 35 hours. It's a schedule change for that week, not hour change. But I would not dream of asking her to work the missed hours from last week or last month.

[Anonymous]

My nanny has minimum guaranteed hours, but we change the schedule every week, so if we don't need her to come Tuesday morning because we're taking Larla to the doctor, we can (and often do) ask her to make up the hours elsewhere. We need a flexible schedule because my husband works shift work, so we need different childcare hours every day. Nanny was OK with this (or we would have hired someone else). We guarantee 50 hours/week minimum, but use between 45 and 55 in practice, so it's not like she's getting nickle and dimed; that said, if we don't need her to work Tuesday morning, we absolutely might ask her to stay until the kids' bedtime on Tuesday so that we can do a date night. We have "core" hours of 8-7 (when she has to be available) and we ask her to use her best efforts to be available outside of those hours, but understand she may not be (and has some running conflicts that we plan around).

[Anonymous]

We don't pay our casual nanny/babysitter for time not worked. For example, if we come home early we pay her a little less and if we don't need her, we don't pay her. The difficulty does come when she can't work although this happens rarely as it does screw up our plans. We use her for two days a week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We don't pay our casual nanny/babysitter for time not worked. For example, if we come home early we pay her a little less and if we don't need her, we don't pay her. The difficulty does come when she can't work although this happens rarely as it does screw up our plans. We use her for two days a week.

This is more understandable for babysitter type of person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My nanny has minimum guaranteed hours, but we change the schedule every week, so if we don't need her to come Tuesday morning because we're taking Larla to the doctor, we can (and often do) ask her to make up the hours elsewhere. We need a flexible schedule because my husband works shift work, so we need different childcare hours every day. Nanny was OK with this (or we would have hired someone else). We guarantee 50 hours/week minimum, but use between 45 and 55 in practice, so it's not like she's getting nickle and dimed; that said, if we don't need her to work Tuesday morning, we absolutely might ask her to stay until the kids' bedtime on Tuesday so that we can do a date night. We have "core" hours of 8-7 (when she has to be available) and we ask her to use her best efforts to be available outside of those hours, but understand she may not be (and has some running conflicts that we plan around).

Lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My nanny has minimum guaranteed hours, but we change the schedule every week, so if we don't need her to come Tuesday morning because we're taking Larla to the doctor, we can (and often do) ask her to make up the hours elsewhere. We need a flexible schedule because my husband works shift work, so we need different childcare hours every day. Nanny was OK with this (or we would have hired someone else). We guarantee 50 hours/week minimum, but use between 45 and 55 in practice, so it's not like she's getting nickle and dimed; that said, if we don't need her to work Tuesday morning, we absolutely might ask her to stay until the kids' bedtime on Tuesday so that we can do a date night. We have "core" hours of 8-7 (when she has to be available) and we ask her to use her best efforts to be available outside of those hours, but understand she may not be (and has some running conflicts that we plan around).

Lol

What's funny about the above? We ask her to block out 55 hours a week and guarantee she gets paid for at least 50 of them, even though she often only works 45 or so; obviously if she works more than 50, she gets paid for those too above her guaranteed weekly salary. Occasionally, we need hours outside of the 55 blocked off, but those she can turn down if she has a conflict (and we only ask 2-3 times a month max). (To put this in an overall context, we pay more than $20/hour + true OT over 40 hours -- so 10 guaranteed hours of OT a week paid at more than $30/hour. She also gets 2 weeks of vacation at her own election + 1 week of sick/personal leave + federal holidays/government closures. She also, in practice, gets about 4 other paid weeks of holiday a year, including at least 2 over the Xmas season.)