PRobably daft question about holidays and nannies

Thanks, will give mine a try!

I too have been nannying for 20 yrs + and never had to go in and do chores when any of my families have been away . It is quite usual that nannies are having more than the standard, minimum allowance.. I think it should be a bonus to be honest as we have to fit around our employers holiday dates for the majority of our holiday , for instance I am off now, would not at all be my chosen holiday time as far too expensive and is school holiday time..

I know that some nannies are having it stated in their contract , that if the family go away over the allocated holiday time, the nanny still gets paid ... It should be made very clear at the outset, whether the nanny has the time off, comes in and does chores or works the time in lieu ..so that everyone knows where they are.

I also did the Tigerlily 6 hour first aid course that Blondes did (same place too!) and I am OFSTED registered. They didn't even ask to see it!

On the subject of First Aid, Ofsted accepted my six hour course when I initially registered, as it was paediatric and contained all the required elements.
I have since done a blended 12 hour paediatric, 6 hours online , 6 hours attended. It is suitable for Ofsted child-minders and nannies.
OP I think if you have extra days holiday over the statutory allowance then by all means ask your nanny to come in and do other tasks.
Paying for the First Aid course is very kind. I happily funded my own and did in my own time.

OP: I think the nasty comments about the day off for the transport crisis are just that. In any professional job not turning up in those circumstances requires unpaid leave or holiday and could also result in a warning where there is no appropriate communication/planning on the part of the employee. Same applies to nannies.

Holidays: by the same token, you are absolutely within your rights to ask your nanny to do nursery duties on those days or take them from her holiday entitlement if she prefers not to turn up. And I would amend the contract to say that you pick holiday dates though she can apply for holiday at other times and you have discretion whether to grant them or not. Same as other employment relationships. We do this with our nanny and with professional behaviour on both sides there has never been an issue.

Have no idea sorry. It was a TIGERLILY course. Will have a look through my emails and see if can find it

We just googled and found one in our area. Think was £80 and said suitable for ofsted

I'm Not ofsted reg but my friend L is and did the course with me and D another friend who did the first aid with me that day has recently become ofsted reg and both have been accepted so doesn't always have to be a 12hr one iyswim

*Yours

Blondes - I have done a 6 hour Paediatric first aid course and trying to find out if it's valid for OFSTED - what made tours "be valid" so to speak?

PS if going to be a very regular thing, next time you could negotiate a certain number of days off on half pay per year in exchange for a slightly higher hourly rate? may or may not be worth it depending on the number or days per year.

My main question was what to do when you have considerably more days that you don't require a nanny for than allocated leave at employers' direction, and the answer from most of you seems to be to ask her to come in and do some child related stuff.

My answer would be that she gets extra time off paid and you hope for flexibility elsewhere on an ad hoc basis. Personally I wouldn't ask her to come in and do other stuff, but each to their own.

Perfect solution this time

Why would you do next time?

And personally I feel that the nanny should have an up to date first aid and DBS - and up to them to keep them up to date. VEry nice of you to pay

Assuming as a 2 day one you need her to be ofsted reg for vouchers?

Tho saying that the first aid I did was one day and suitable for ofsted

Perfect

I have always had it as paid time off. Not expected to go into work.

Employers I feel are in control of when their employee takes holiday and thus should manage the holiday calendar. If employers take additional holiday then that is not the nannies fault.
If you don't need nanny to come into work then give them it off as additional paid leave.

You want to keep nanny happy. An unhappy nanny may move on quickly. A happy nanny may stay for many years.

She probably won't be keen to come to work when the children aren't there if the alternative is a paid day off, but if you can find child related jobs in the house she can be doing, then there is work for her to do. I would be fair and give her a shorter day, eg what is normally 8-6 could become 10-4, but still full pay. It doesn't take that much thought for her to think of a few jobs she could be getting on with if the children aren't there.

When my employers take extra holiday I get time off and obviously paid

Yes if extra holiday then they could ask me to go in and clean playroom cook etc - but none ever have

Last job was 11 weeks holiday. 4 in contract but they went away lots and I got extra

Tbh I think in every job I've had over 23yrs u have had over my 4 weeks and got extra every year. Even if a week or two

Nanny works 2 days per week, so Minimum holiday entitlement is 2 x 5.6 = 11.2 days. This can not be rounded down, so either .2 of a day needs to be calculated in hours or you give more than Minimum holiday entitlement.

If we said that annual leave was 12 days, then nanny and you have 6 each of your choice, though you can dictate all of them by refusing holiday requests unless it suits you.

Xmas break - contract is badly worded and needs to be revised. "working days falling on or between Xmas and New Year" may be a better way of phrasing it. Bank/Public holidays can get messy as sometimes it is assumed that they are not worked, when in fact there is no right to have them off. I expect your intention is to provide Xmas Day, Boxing Day and New Years Day off, plus any working days between.

Example if nanny is working Wed and Thursday:
Xmas 2014 is a Thursday. So nanny works Xmas Eve, has Xmas Day off, has New Years Eve (Wed) off, has New Years Day (Thur) off. So uses 3 days of holiday.

Why run the holiday year from Jan-Dec, why not March-Feb (or more likely the Start date in March to the same date minus 1, the following year - so if starting 12 March 2014, holiday year runs until 11 March 2015.

OK, lets start from the basics. Her holiday year runs March - March. If you have given her 4 weeks holiday plus bank holidays then she gets 8 days (plus BH). 2 weeks (4 days) you choose, 2 weeks (4 days) she chooses. clearly you choose your 2 weeks to coincide with when you're away, she probably won't. Any extra time you are away, but she is available to work, you pay her. If your contract is the standard 5.6 weeks including bank holidays then she gets 11.2 days including BH, take off the bank holidays and whatever is left you split down the middle who chooses when it can be taken. This is assuming you have a standard contract. You do have a contract......?

So, assuming 4 weeks plus BH, she has now taken 2 days of the 4 that she gets to choose and can take 2 more, at her choosing, between now and March. I think the 2 days in June if you didn't call it AL you'll have to let those go. You are away for 6 days - so that uses up the 4 days of her AL that you get to choose, and you either give her 2 extra days paid leave or get her in to do other work (which, I agree is petty and likely to result in less flexibility from her).

Nannying is give and take. I sometimes need my nanny to do an extra hour later, I always paid her for this - then she had a few extra paid afternoons off as I got some time off work at short notice and sent her home. From then on, she wouldn't take the extra money for the extra hour. Had I made her stay her full hours, just to make the point, even though I was home from work early, I'm pretty sure she'd have charged me for the extra hours!

I would also go in when bosses on holidays. I can gut the playroom and bedrooms, toy sort, clothes sort, batch cook, label clothes for school etc etc. leave a list of jobs, as long as she's aware that you don't want her in at the crack of dawn she should be fine, I used to go in and do 10-3 when my bosses were away.

I'm also happy to go in and get bits done that I can't with the children around, especially re homing the broken, plastic tat in the playroom! I've even hired a carpet shampooer to clean bedroom (refluxy baby!) and playroom carpets, I also tell bosses that I'll do other rooms if they pay me!!

Most of my employers get any work that is needed done on the house while they are away so the children aren't exposed to brick dust, chemicals, loud noises or they they don't run across the newly cleaned carpets in dirty shoes so I will be there to let in workmen.

I work 11 hour days, if I go in while they are away, I do maybe 4-6 hours one or two days. I also write a nice long list, cross off what I've done even though some of the jobs take 5/10 minutes, it looks like I've been busy!!

I think it's shitty to get a nanny to come in when the children aren't there, just so that they're 'working' not 'getting extra days off'.

Mind you, I also think it's arsey when someone has a transport crisis to take a days leave off them, then carp on about it 'not happening again'. If it was a 'transport crisis' then that's what it was... it's not like she just couldn't be arsed coming in

Are you paying her through an nanny tax type agency? I hope so, otherwise her tax & holiday situation is going to be a complete shambles. You really need to get a handle on how it all works.

If she works weds and thurs then yes that's three days and one from next years leave (New Years day). Does the amount of leave you worked out (the 9.5 days ) come from full time 28 days or 20 days plus bank holidays as if from the latter then still 2 days leave and Christmas Day is extra as the 28 days full time leave is the min allowed.

I work out 28 /5 x 2 makes 11.2 days leave a year and as only Christmas and new year would normally be the only bh she would work and you can't round down that leave the 9.5 you mentioned before. So you give Christmas and new year as well as the original mentioned leave so still leaves you with the 2 days al needed to cover the two weds this year and two you can move.

Perhaps ask her for suggestions? If shes experienced like some of the lovely people on here she might have ideas of her own.

People often respond better if you ask them what they think they should do task wise in the time, rather than giving them "directions" and she will be more likely to be happy to undertake chores/prep/batch cooking if she suggests them.