Very first world problem. Sorry its long.
We have had nannies and cleaners in the past, and have a recently employed a nanny/housekeeper 2 days a week. As an employer, I'm just rubbish at managing them. I want to be friendly, but don't want to be their friend. I want to be able to tell them when something isn't right a) without upsetting them and b) with what ever the problem is being rectified. Some examples. Our nanny was always late. I highlighted this on more than one occasion, including in writing, but it made no difference. In the end if I needed her at 7.30, I'd ask her to come at 7.15 and pay the for 15 minutes she was late. Once the kids were school age she obviously had a lot of free time during the day. She wouldn't do any non child related domestic work (fair enough), but I often came home and the children hadn't been fed, nor had she made anything in the 6 child free hours she had during the day for me to feed them, so after 11 hours out of the house I'd come home to make food for the kids from scratch.
With respect to our new nanny/house keeper(NHC), last week we had an electrician doing some work at the house. I was WFH. After she had taken the kids to school she tidied up a bit in the kitchen and did a micro clean of the bathroom and then said she couldn't do anything else as the electrician was here. The electrician was in the hallway, landing and utility. She could have hoovered all the other rooms and properly cleaned the kitchen and bathroom and made some food. She said she'd make up the hours later in the week, but I felt like it was our fault for not telling her about the electrician, so said she didn't have to, but she did. But I don't really think it is our fault - the electrician was in 3 rooms, I simply don't see how she couldn't have worked round them, and I didn't feel i could say " do you mind washing the kitchen floor and putting all the bins out and making our dinner". Its become very obvious that cooking isn't her strong point, so we can only ask her to do the simplest of meals. She came with glowing references. We really like her as a person and would like to increase her hours in the new year, but I can only do this if I can 'train' her to do a better job. Have others done this? How? Or is this a lost cause? The other problem is that we live in quite a rural area and it took me months to find her in the first place, so I'm not sure she can be easily replaced, even if I wanted to.
We pay about £3/hr above the going rate. Thanks for reading to the end.