Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We pay our nanny guaranteed hours, and we take 6 weeks if vacation a year.
She is very good, but this has become a sore spot. Even though she gets six paid weeks, she has never once offered to give am hour here or there. We returned from a 2 week vacation (after she had already had 4 weeks off that year) and had to stay at work late - and she charged us for that measly HOUR, after having all that paid time off

We are giving her notice next month. My advice to you is to negotiate a compromise up front. Paying for alot of unused time will get to you.

Are you forced to take vacation at gunpoint? Because that's what it sounds like. You have my condolences.

This. "We're mad we pay for time we said we'd use, but don't because we like to take vacation. This is somehow our nanny's fault, and she should give us additional freebies. Because she doesn't, we're firing her." You sound like a two year old.

Anonymous wrote:We pay our nanny guaranteed hours, and we take 6 weeks if vacation a year.
She is very good, but this has become a sore spot. Even though she gets six paid weeks, she has never once offered to give am hour here or there. We returned from a 2 week vacation (after she had already had 4 weeks off that year) and had to stay at work late - and she charged us for that measly HOUR, after having all that paid time off

We are giving her notice next month. My advice to you is to negotiate a compromise up front. Paying for alot of unused time will get to you.

Are you forced to take vacation at gunpoint? Because that's what it sounds like. You have my condolences.

We pay our nanny guaranteed hours, and we take 6 weeks if vacation a year.
She is very good, but this has become a sore spot. Even though she gets six paid weeks, she has never once offered to give am hour here or there. We returned from a 2 week vacation (after she had already had 4 weeks off that year) and had to stay at work late - and she charged us for that measly HOUR, after having all that paid time off

We are giving her notice next month. My advice to you is to negotiate a compromise up front. Paying for alot of unused time will get to you.

Anonymous wrote:Sorry but it's really shitty to expect the nanny to make up hours that YOU decide to be gone in order for her to paid. The only thing that the PP mentioned I think it even remotely fair is having her do some things for the family while they are away, that is of course assuming the nanny has not decided to leave town herself. And the idea of not giving her any choice in when she takes her own vacation is pretty shitty too. What if she has a special event to attend out of town that does not coincide with your vacation? She just has to take that unpaid? Again, really shitty.

I don't see why this is "shitty" if it is disclosed and negotiated up front. I would be ecstatic if my boss offered me the opportunity to work some extra long days or a couple of weekends in exchange for several extra weeks of paid vacation. Guaranteed hours a perk, not a right. They can be given subject to limitations.

The family I work for went away for almost a month in November. If I hadn't been paid for this time I would have had to have quit. I love my job but just can't afford to not be paid for an entire month. I have student loans that need to be paid and I like to be able to make rent.

You could ask your nanny to grocery shop, and cook some things to be easily heated when you get back.

Another thing you can consider, OP, is to market all the extra time off (above and beyond the usual vacation schedule) as a perk and offer a lower base rate to compensate for the time off. I think this would work if you are taking 4+ weeks off a year in addition to the week of your choice and a week of the nanny's.

Anything less than that is probably not worth the trouble. Just pay her.

We always pay. If our nanny is available to work, we pay, even if we are not using her that day.

That said, our nanny offered to make sure our mail was collected, water the lawn, etc., when we took off for 6 weeks every summer. She came in for maybe an hour a day, and we did appreciate it.

Sorry but it's really shitty to expect the nanny to make up hours that YOU decide to be gone in order for her to paid. The only thing that the PP mentioned I think it even remotely fair is having her do some things for the family while they are away, that is of course assuming the nanny has not decided to leave town herself. And the idea of not giving her any choice in when she takes her own vacation is pretty shitty too. What if she has a special event to attend out of town that does not coincide with your vacation? She just has to take that unpaid? Again, really shitty.

OP, the nannies on this board are a bit more precious than the majority you'll meet in DC. Yes, guaranteed hours are common in DC, and that means you pay your nanny when you go on vacation. However, when employers routinely take more than the two weeks vacation that nannies typically get, it is very common for the employer and nanny to work out a compromise that feels fair to both.

I know one family that gives the nanny the standard two weeks vacation. The family typically takes three additional vacation weeks and the nanny gets those off with pay, but she earns that excess PTO by working three weekends (Sat morn through Sun evening) over the course of the year. I'm not sure it's legal, but they are all happy with the arrangement.

I know another family who mitigates the cost of guaranteed hours by not giving the nanny any choice in when she takes vacation. She gets off when they take their four weeks of vacation. They always take off the same weeks each year, so the nanny can plan her trips accordingly. I know she doesn't love the situation, but she's been in her job for a long time regardless.

I've also heard that some families have the nanny come in when they are away to do things like water plants, feed cats, take in mail, purge kids closets, and make casseroles or pureed baby food to stock the freezer.

In my family, we give the nanny three weeks paid PTO but typically take two or three weeks beyond that. We do pay her for these additional weeks but with two caveats. First, we require her to travel with us for up to three weeks a year. During these weeks, she gets her regular pay and works her regular hours but on a different schedule, so DH and I get some date nights and don't always have to miss the best part of the beach day to supervise naps. We won't necessarily want to do this when our kids get older, but at this point, it works well.

Second, we guarantee her pay for 50 hours a week but have agreed that these hours may be scheduled any time M-F between 8 am and 9 pm, so if we take a random Friday off, she makes up some of those hours by working longer days that week. This makes sense for us because we invariably find ourselves needing time away from the kids for errands or late work to complete tasks before taking any time off.

One other point about guaranteed hours bears mentioning. Some people only guarantee 40 hours a week, even though the nanny is routinely required to work 45 hours a week or more. If you do guarantee more than 40 hours a week, it is very common in DC to negotiate in terms of an average hourly rate. In other words, if you are looking to hire a $15 per hour nanny for 50 guaranteed hours a week, you would pay $750 a week, but specify in the contract that the base rate for the first 40 hours is $13.64 and the ot rate for hours 41-50 is $20.46. The $20.46 rate also applies to any hours over 50. I was not familiar with this approach when I first started looking for a nanny. It was actually an experienced career nanny who convinced me this is the norm (although she thought of it as a $15 per hour job with guaranteed hours and time and a half starting once the guaranteed hours were exceeded).

So sorry for the condescending snarkiness on this board. But hard truth is if you want good, professional help, you are paying for their availability to you. You must pay them for the time you choose not to use them. If you don't, you'll lose them.

Anonymous wrote:OP, the nannies posting on this board will give you a skewed idea. guaranteed hours are not obligatory, although they are very common in DC. I pay our nanny guaranteed hours, but as one PP mentioned, that is a job perk. Many employees in various businesses do not get that perk.

If the family is choosing to leave town and not use the nanny, then paying her for that time is not considered a perk, it is an expected common courtesy. Otherwise, don't expect to have the nanny when you return.

Other types of hourly jobs don't get guaranteed hours, true, but those jobs also have RIDICULOUS turnover. If that is okay with you, go right ahead and structure your job that way. If you want someone to commit to you long term, and to be able to maintain their availability without keeping an eye out for extra hours and other better jobs, you need to guarantee the schedule.

Any MB with half a brain knows its in the best interest of all involved to do so. Do you want your nanny distracted while caring for your kid constantly with the worry of how she will eat/pay her bills because YOU take a lot of vacation? Do you want her tired and burnt out because she's moonlighting to make up lost income? Its not difficult to treat childcare as a fixed expense. Why you MBs would advise against guaranteed hours is beyond me. Not everyone does it, but it is a general practice. That is what OP asked. Not if every single nanny in the history of nannying gets it. Generally full time nannies expect and recieve guaranteed hours. To suggest otherwise is disingenuous.

Anonymous wrote:OP, the nannies posting on this board will give you a skewed idea. guaranteed hours are not obligatory, although they are very common in DC. I pay our nanny guaranteed hours, but as one PP mentioned, that is a job perk. Many employees in various businesses do not get that perk.

NP here.

Fine.

Not ALL nannies get guaranteed hours.

But ANY nanny that doesn't, and loses out regularly on her SOLE SOURCE OF INCOME, will eventually quit for a family that will give her lifestyle security.

Your choice, of course.

OP, the nannies posting on this board will give you a skewed idea. guaranteed hours are not obligatory, although they are very common in DC. I pay our nanny guaranteed hours, but as one PP mentioned, that is a job perk. Many employees in various businesses do not get that perk.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The one thing you could do if you know that it will definitely be 3+ weeks of vacation in the summer and you can give those dates up front is say that upon interviewing that they won't be paid. A good nanny should easily be able to find a job to cover three summer weeks if she knows in advance. You might find someone that doesn't mind that arrangement, assuming all else is a good fit.

Because it is so easy to find 3 weeks of work in the middle of summer!
If a potential employer told me that I would be taking a nearly 6% pay cut, I would find a job that wouldnt.
Would you be willing to take a 6% cut in pay OP?

PP, I'm just suggesting that it could be something negotiated upfront. Obviously if someone didn't like that, they wouldn't take the job. But I disagree with you that it would be so difficult to find a temporary position. There are always tons of parents trying to find coverage for the summer, and you could advertise that you are available full-time for that period well in advance if you knew the dates going in.