Letting go a new nanny. Any obligations?
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Anonymous
| New nanny started last week. Not a great start but I was willing to see how it went. This week is demonstrating she's not a good fit so we plan to terminate her on Friday. I don't feel like I have any obligations to her in terms of severance, etc. I also know she is continuing to look for a new job (and has been since day 1) even though she accepted and started with us (so that doesn't exactly encourage me to provide severance either). Do I owe her anything or am I fine to cut her loose? If it makes a difference, she did not leave an existing job for this one, as her old job ended before ours started. |
Anonymous
| IMO ending the relationship less than two weeks in does not require any severance at all. It barely even merits discussion of a reference. |
Anonymous
| No I don't think you owe her anything, but maybe an honest assessment of why it did not work, more than just "bad fit", so that maybe she can improve in the future. On another note, how do you know she is still looking? If this is part of why you are letting her go, you may want to simply address it with her before jumping the gun. If you are going off of her login date on an online profile, keep in mind that if she was job searching before accepting your position, she likely has loose ends to tie up, or she may be looking for evening/weekend hours. |
Anonymous
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No, you're still in a trial period (even if you didn't have one explicitly defined in a contract certainly anything under 2 weeks and possibly anything under 4 weeks is considered probationary) so you don't owe her any severance of any kind. It would probably be helpful for her to hear one or two points that made her not a great fit, but if you think she'll handle that conversation badly based on your previous interactions with her I might not bother.
As a side note, the next time you hire a nanny (i.e. her replacement) you should put a contract in place that defines your trial period and then the severance you would offer (either in terms of notice or financial compensation) after that. |
Anonymous
She has been logged into the job search site every single day. Her posting indicates she's looking for a FT job. She was slow to respond to our offer (kind of dropped off radar as we tried to finalize details) even though she had been very prompt to respond to earlier exchanges. And on day 1 she asked for a pay increase despite having accepted our offer. So it's pretty clear to me that she is continuing to look and would drop us if she found something better. |
Anonymous
| You don't owe her anything. |
nannydebsays
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| IMO, all you owe her is a kind "Thanks for working for us these last X days, but we feel that this match is not the best fit for us. We wish you luck in your job search." |
Anonymous
| Maybe she sees you logging in as we'll, so she started looking? The pay raise thing on day 1 is pretty outrageous, I'd let her go just for that. From a nanny. |
Anonymous
| Nanny again- no severance! |
Anonymous
| If it's not working out I don't think you owe her anything. I will say as a nanny, I don't always get a chance to change my profile immediately. |
Anonymous
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As long as she knew it was just a "trial period," then I am confident you do not owe her anything...Not a severance nor an explanation. And since she is still seeking another job, she probably feels the same way that you do, that this job is not a good match on both ends.
A severance after a week is too much and virtually unheard of. Esp. if it was a trial week. Don't let her talk you into one. Let her go and be done. Thank God for trial weeks. |
Anonymous
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OP here. We're letting her go at end of day tomorrow. Now trying to figure out how to deliver the news most gracefully. The most honest statement would be "you have shown yourself to be both dishonest and only marginally competent" but that seems a bit much. As this two week period has gone on, we've come to the conclusion that she really overstated her experience and/or is just immensely phoning it in because she didn't get the renegotiated pay she wants.
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