Moms with nannies and Nannies, please come in!
I go back to work in 5 weeks and we have several nannies lined up to interview in the coming days/weeks.
I read the thread below but have several other questions -
- These nannies do not come through a service but through personal recommendations (who did not use a contract)Other friends w/ nannies through a service use a contract. I am not comfortable hiring anyone w/o a contract. My H thinks a contract could "scare" them away. Thoughts?
- H and I are both residents. His basic hours are pretty set and his call/moonlighting he has complete flexibility over. My hours will vary wildly in the next year from 40 hrs/wk to 80 hrs/wk. We plan on guaranteeing the pay equivalent of a certain # of hrs a week (probably 50) with additional hourly pay for "overtime" as well. We would pay her the guaranteed weekly rate even if we use her less than that. (this is possible as sometimes even my schedule can really vary - how busy is clinic that day, etc) Does this sound appropriate/reasonable?
- How do ya'll work weekends if your nanny does any weekend care/babysitting? Thanks to his flexibility he can schedule his nights/weekends around mine, so we'd only really need her then for true babysitting, to give us a chance to go out to eat, etc. When your nanny comes for this, do you pay her the same amount per hour as her regular weekly rate? Did you put that in the contract or just discuss it with her?
- We both get 4 weeks (20 work days) of paid vacation a year. We try to take it together but can't always b/c of our schedules. We plan on giving the nanny probably the same amount - 15 days of our choosing and 5 days of her choosing. Should we allow her to take the 5 days consecutively or break them up at her discretion, given that she gives us enough notice? My parents live 3 hrs away and are retired and very willing to come stay w/ us and help given notice ahead of time.
- On top of paid vacation we'll offer a few paid holidays I guess. Which ones and how many do ya'll offer? I also saw that one woman in the thread below gave her nanny a few paid sick days as well. I like that thought too - discourage her from coming to work sick just so she won't have to use up vacation days.
- Any other thoughts/tips?
Thanks!
Re: Moms with nannies and Nannies, please come in!
I may not be the ideal person to answer because I'm not as generous as some of the other moms on this board!!
1. I found my nanny on craigslist. We don't have a contract. I selected her based on her desire to work, her referrals and my overall gut. We love her.
2. We have set hours and then ask her to work additional hours as needed. She wants the work and (I think) enjoys the job so she always says "yes". Otherwise, I have a plan B person lined up. I recommend paying her an hourly rate and find a nanny that can do weeks between 40-60 hours and set with her an overtime rate and pay her weekly based on the number of hours worked.
3. For weekend work I would ask her if she wants the work and if not, find another babysitter.
4. I would start off with 1 week of paid vacation and some sick days and holidays paid. I wouldn't start off with 15 days of vacation. You want to work up to that! Do give all the goods up front. I only do vacation and paid holidays and her vacation time is when we go on vacation (I told you I was hard core!). I don't pay sick days.
5. We pay the holidays that hit during a normal work week that my DH and I have off (so she doesn't get obsure holidays like president's day because I don't get that off).
Given all that, we do give her some perks. She brings along her 2 year old boy. We let her leave early here and there and don't deduct pay. We tip her. I buy her gifts every once in awhile. She has appointments at school for her children and I work around her schedule. That sort of thing. We also pay well per hour so that helps keep her happy. But I think the biggest thing for her is being able to bring her son with her to work. She also brings her older child when she's out of school. My DS loves all the attention and her boy and my DS love to play together. They are little buddies. Good luck!!
Any smart nanny would insist on a contract....we have had 2 nannies and they both loved and appreciated the contract because it not only protected us from being screwed over by a nanny, but it protected them. We couldn't say "but I thought you were ok with working extra hours without being paid?" or "but I thought you wouldn't mind doing extra cleaning for no money." or whatever. Our contract is pretty detailed with hours, pay for over those hours, pay for anything over those hours, that we will call and ask if she can work late, not assume she can just stay (she has a life too), specific holidays, etc, etc. Its just nice for everyone knowing that the "expectations" cant just suddenly change at anyone's whim. It states how much we will reimburse her if she spends her own money on things and what things we will reimburse her for...art supplies, gas money, etc....so she doesn't go and spend hundreds to do crafty projects, but also so that she DOES go and do fun things with the kids.
Current nanny has a nanny friend who had to work on Christmas Eve because she didn't have a contract, didn't have any "days off" and didn't discuss which days would be holidays off before hand.....nanny friend was upset because her family does their Christmas stuff on Christmas eve. Our nanny knew before she started what days off she woudl have, what holidays she would have and how many vacation days she could request off otherwise.
We pay our nanny more if we ask her to watch the kids on the weekend. I sort of consider it "overtime". We rarely ask her though...we have lots of family in town.
I think we give our nanny 2 weeks vacation that she choses...doesn't have to be in one chunk of time....it can be spread out. She has taken an afternoon off here to go to the doctor, or a Friday for a long weekend. I think in teh contract we said we need a weeks notices for this, which works for us. She always gives us more than that. plus the standard holidays....I think I added up 9 days in my head. And 3 sick days. We were stingy on the sick days, but she has only called in sick once after she got a stomach bug that she caught from my kids....she came over, I stayed home to care for one sick kid, she was watching the other two...within minutes of her getting in our house, kid #2 started getting sick, so I sent nanny home, but it was too late, she was exposed...we all got it.....miserable week. Any vacation time or days off we take, we still pay her.
You're pay plan sounds pretty fair.....I think setting a minimum, but then saying what the overtime for over a certain number of hours is good. I guess it depends on what you say the minimum would be and such...something you'd have to work out with nanny.
Sorry that was long!
I agree with PP - definitely have a contract. My DH was afraid it would sound all "Nanny Diaries" to our nanny, but I talked to her about it and she said she preferred to work with a contract because then everything is spelled out clearly. It is for the protection of both of you.
I think I posted this in the other thread but we pay a set weekly rate for up to 32 hours whether we use it or not. This week, for example, I have tomorrow off so our nanny isn't coming but she still makes her normal weekly pay. Since the cost is the same sometimes I'll have her come if I do have a day off for 2-3 hours so I can run some errands which is really nice. Anything over the 32 hours or outside of the hours we expect her to be available (such as weekends) is at her discretion and we pay an overtime rate for that.
Sick and vacation are totally up to you your nanny to negotiate. We offered sick, but not vacation time though we will pay her if WE go on vacation and don't need her to come. If she goes on vacation that's fine, but we won't pay for that time.
I found our nanny through Craigslist and like the previous posters we have an agreement. I call it an agreement because I outlined the terms of our relationship and sent it to her, she emailed me back and said that it looks fine to her. There was a place for her to sign but I never pushed the issue since my goal of us being on the same page was accomplished and I'm not sure that having it signed would change anything if an issue were to arise.
I told her generally what her hours would be each day (day and time). If we need to switch things around or she does we just talk about it. This has worked well so far. She works for us 3 days a week typically 8:30-5:30 and it doesn't really vary, so your situation may need to be handled a little differently. We pay her for time worked and don't use her for weekends.
I told her in advance the holiday we wouldn't be needing her. We pay her for 6 full days of vacation - she can pick what those are. I let her know we'd be gone about 4 weeks each year on vacation and since she is only paid for time worked, unless she takes those as her vacation she doesn't get paid.
She has her daughter with her, which I love because it gives my son a buddy to play with, which is a perk for her!
I wished I had talked more in advance about "sick days", not only what makes either her, her daughter or my son, sick enough, but also how we would handle pay etc. We didn't talk about this and I figured my time worked clause covered me, but the other day when my son was sick and I kept him home, she asked about sick pay. I told her about the clause and she was cool with it, but I felt bad and ended up paying her for 1/2 the day since she did commit her time to us and I cancelled that morning.
If you want to see the agreement email me at schorey at gmail dot com.
Good Luck!
1. We do not have a contract but reading the PP, maybe we should. But we also selected her based on recommendations and her preference to work closer to her home (she was offered other positions much farther away). We've also met her husband and they are a lovely couple. We love her! Found her on Yahoo.
2. We hired our nanny based on her flexibility. She works full days Monday-Thursday and a half-day Friday (I work from home). Basically we told her some weeks might be a little over 40 hours and some under 40 hours so it all works out. If we need her longer, we'll pay her hourly rate.
3. I just asked my nanny to work the last weekend in May because I have a big event that weekend. We'll pay her her hourly rate. She's fine working weekends with enough notice.
4-5. Our nanny is paid for holidays and our vacations. But she's pretty flexible so for holidays like MLK or Presidents Day, she worked. She'll also get paid for her vacations - 2 weeks. We never really discussed sick days but we'd pay her for those as well as long as it's a reasonable amount of days per year.