AIBU to think they are paying too little? (nanny related)

[sunshineinthenorth]

I've started looking at live-in nanny jobs, and I came across an advert today which I think is unreasonable, yet I'm unsure of what a 'normal' nanny salary consists of.

The family in question want a live in nanny (provided with one bedroom in their house) who works 12.5 hour days, 5 days a week and babysits evenings twice a week too, as well as clean and dog walk.

copied from ad- duties include:

• Light housework
• Changing sheets
• Laundry and ironing
• Cooking for the whole family
• Running errands
• Be in the house when our daughter returns from school
• Taking our daughter to occasional appointments
• Babysitting once or twice a week
• Dog walking

for all this they will pay £150 a week. Is this reasonable? It doesn't even work out to minimum wage and it is central London based.

Aware I might be being slightly naive!

Gumtree is full of wealthy people I'm Central London looking for slaves. They should be reported.

It's an au pair wage but nanny duties and hours, yes they are bu!

Can you post a link to the ad?

In a nanny and I walk the dogs! I love waking the dogs

Then you are a nanny who loves walking dogs, and you are happy in your work. More power to your elbow! And you get paid properly as well.
It couldn't get much better for you.

But it's not a nanny's job to walk the dog, iyswim is all I am saying.

They are the kind that will leave a long list of housework every day to be completed. I have heard many horror stories of positions like this. Very exploitative.

Yes, basically they are looking for a foreign domestic worker (maid/helper/ amah) as they are variously known. People move back from Asia/ME (or people from those places move to UK temporarily) and try to replicate their previous household staff situation by taking advantage of the live in rules in the UK (i.e. massively inflate value of accommodation). There was one the other week where they even specified "Filipina".

I don't see anything wrong with nannies walking dogs, as long as the expectation was made clear prior to them accepting the job, and they are paid sufficiently.

Clearly the pay in this advert is the issue.

I don't see anything wrong with nannies walking dogs, as long as the expectation was made clear prior to them accepting the job, and they are paid sufficiently

Well nor do I. In fact it's a real positive for people who like dogs and who also like walking. I was just saying it's not a standard requirement for a nanny post. I wouldn't have thought.

Glad to know I'm not expecting too much. Think I'll stay away from gumtree and use more professional websites

That's an au pair wage. So for that they can reasonably expect up to 25 hours of work per week. Perhaps the tasks they've listed could actually be done in 25 hours/week (depends on age of child and exactly what they expect as housework). But what's not ok is expecting her to be available 12.5 hours a day + extra! Au pairs are meant to have most of the day free to study/get to know the country.

I ran a couple of nanny/staff agencies and you wouldn't believe what people expect others to do.

I also worked for an EXTREMELY wealthy family who employed a Filipino who lived in a cold, damp tiny room under the street, basically in the cellar bit where most people in London would keep their bins or in olden days coal. She worked 7 days a week and got two hours off on a Sunday for church. They'd get her up at 3am to cook for them when they came in drunk. Oh and she was about 70.

Humanity is revolting.

Is there some way you could report these people bummymummy? That must be illegal.

Report to the council's trading standards department, they'll deal with it. Send them the advert.

We pay our cleaner £30 for two hours work! This advert is a joke.

I often told her she could get a better job with better pay and hours but theyd ground her down. She'd been there over ten years and they stripped away at her confidence.

I actually did a job exactly like this once minus the dog walking. It was hell and slave labour. For £150 a week not food included. Don't even go there.

It doesn't appear to be 12.5 hours a day though. It sounds like their one dd is old enough to get herself to school and back. So, it could be an hour or so in the morning, an hour walking the dog, then 4 or so hours once the dc is home, and you could use that to do the cooking and cleaning at same time. London, so you're probably saving about £200 a week rent, so it's about £350 a week pay for about 30 hours.
I don't think it's as bad as some posters are reading it.

But the OP says they want someone 12.5 hours a day (plus two evenings)?

So clearly they want her to be available for that amount of time, even if there isn't always enough work to fill that amount of time.

If you want someone to be available exclusively to you, you need to be paying them for that time. Even if they can get the job done in less time. (And I strongly suspect this family would be the type to load the work on so it did take all day).

The job is 12.5 hours a day plus 2 evenings plus all day holiday care us cleaning.
The pay offered doesn't come close!

If it is 12.5 hours a day the parents need to be hauled in front of a court and if found guilty they should be forced to do community service for 1000 hours. If foreigners they should be deported for such a crime.

I saw this type of abuse when I lived in London and nearly always the family they worked for had relocated from a part of the world where treating people like this is normal. We don't need people like that (the employer not the employee).

What is interesting is how it works if you are on a salary and work so many hours that your hourly pay falls below minimum wage. This week I will end up putting in 100 hours and my associates will be below minimum wage here in the US. Our industry is exempt from OT requirements (convenient eh!) but I have a UK team working for me too. HR won't give me more staff so I can reduce the workload for those under me. I really need more staff....

Oh bummy she was a slave, did you report them to the Police. What happened to her?

I think it's fine for a nanny to walk the dog (assuming the family doesn't have two sets of twins within a year of each other or something). Lots of people take care of children and a dog so they just need to choose someone who is comfortable around dogs.

The hours they're asking for though are insane and the pay is ridiculously low. They basically want a slave.

It'd be a massive house that takes 6 hours of cleaning per day to get any where near 12.5 hours. I read the op assuming that the op had decided 12.5 hours, not the job advert. I might have misubderstood.
I'm not saying it's a glorious job opportunity btw, but it might suit a single person who wants to live in central London and can't afford it otherwise.

Just to clear up they listed hours as 7-7.30 each day Monday to Friday, with one or two evenings and all day summer care.

When I've been a live in nanny those hours are completely normal. I've never done all the cleaning as we've had cleaners but it's not unusual to employ a nanny/housekeeper. It's just the salary that's outrageous. I used to earn £400 net for a job like that and a few year ago too.

They need a housekeeper not a qualified nanny