Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's all negotiable and depends on how the contract is written.

If your contract provides the nanny with guaranteed hours or guaranteed weekly pay in x amount, then yes, you pay her whether you need her or not. However, you do have several options. 1) You can require that she make up some or all the hours that she won't work while you are away. 2) You can require that she come in and do other types of work while you are off, such as housekeeping, taking in the mail, watering plants, pet care, etc. 3) You can also have her travel with you (you pay all travel expenses) and work an altered schedule so she covers some days and some nights while you and DH get out for evening play. 4) You can specify in the contract that she gets 4-5 weeks paid vacation and then lower the hourly rate that you would otherwise pay to recapture the cost of all that PTO. Basically, you take her weekly pay, multiply by 52, divide that number back out over the number of days she will actually work.

If she already works for you, it is too late to adjust her rate, so you'll need to talk to her about one or a combination of the other options and then, if you aren't happy with what she is willing to do, change things up at the end of the trial period or first year.

You must be a MB. A contract is a contract and you cannot have the nanny do other tasks unrelated to child care or have her make up the hours if you have agreed upon guaranteed pay. No nanny I know lets families "bank" hours to use at their convenience.

Guaranteed pay is just that--pay. It is not a guarantee that the nanny won't be asked to do anything but childcare to get that pay. Now, it is possible that other language in the contract precludes banking of hours or alternative duties, but if the contract is silent on that, it's fair game for negotation at this time. Clearly there was no mutual agreement on this issue.

Anonymous wrote:Hello! My nanny contract has 10 paid vacation days- 5 of our choosing and 5 of her choosing. I receive 20 vacation days through my work so plan on easily using all of these days. As we are approaching July and I have taken our 5 days, our nanny has not taken any days of her own, so I asked if she had any vacations planned so we can plan around them. She doesn't and said she was fine to work around our schedule. But, now she thinks I want her to pick days, and is thinking of taking a week in August to spend time with her family. This is fine, but my question is, when I use my companies remaining vacation days for the rest the year, will these be paid days to my nanny? So, is she really getting 20+ paid vacation days, or do I not pay her for any vacation days over 10? My assumption going into this is that she would be guaranteed her set pay each week, like I have with my full-time job. I am relatively new to this, so thank you in advance for your advice.

Anonymous wrote:If you don't use your vacation you lose it. Even companies that allow roll over have threshold limits on how much time an employee can back. You sound like one of those nannies who games using guaranteed pay for a windfall. You really ruin it for other nannies by abusing it because guaranteed pay is important.

Anonymous wrote:If you don't use your vacation you lose it. Even companies that allow roll over have threshold limits on how much time an employee can back. You sound like one of those nannies who games using guaranteed pay for a windfall. You really ruin it for other nannies by abusing it because guaranteed pay is important.

Anonymous wrote:OP guaranteed hours are a great benefit as many nannies don't budget or save enough to get through a week or two without their paycheck. I fully agree that guaranteed hours are a benefit not an entitlement which the nanny should negotiate up front. I also think its fair for employers who are planning on taking lots of time when they will not need the nanny and don't plan to pay her to be upfront about this so she can budget for the unpaid time.

One thing to watch out for would be your nanny trying to game the guaranteed hours. Some nannies are terrible about this and will intentionally wait as long as possible to schedule their time off to make sure they didn't lose out on an opportunity to get an extra week or two of PTO if you wanted to go away during those weeks anyway. If she knows that you need to take another 10 days off in the next few months, she may be gaming that her request doesn't line up with time you would take anyway. Make sure that your nanny is not carrying an assumption that she can just keep rolling over unused vacation and then suddenly announce that she is planning on taking off a month to travel to her home country.

You should let her know that she needs to schedule and commit to her week now or lose the time off. There also is nothing wrong with having her work on days that you have off in excess of her negotiated vacation. Its reasonable for nannies to negotiate for guaranteed hours but they do themselves a big disservice expecting this means extra time off whenever a parent if off.