to put rules in place for employee with second job?

[Figamol]

Very long story short!

After 3 traumatic years in the state system, we pulled the money (and blood and limbs) together to put our special needs child in a private school with a one on one funded by us. We found a great girl and its going so well - one of the main reasons we hired her was because she insisted it would be her only job, which was great for our child as it meant she had the flexibility to adapt to his changing needs and we had the possibility to give her extra hours if he was having a bad day or school outing etc..

I coached another parent at the school who now also needs a one on one on how we found her, what we put in place and offered to help her.
Turns out the parent then approached our own one on one to do some hours with her child.

I'm very protective over what we have now managed to put in place. But there's not much we can do about that as of course she can accept more hours outside of her contract with us if she wants. But as our contract hours will be more than double than the child she takes on - practically we want to make sure things run smoothly and there are no blurred lines. Putting in place support isn't an exact science and needs can change at any given moment for any reason and joint supervision would not work (different ages/needs etc) She has assured us our own child is the priority so I'd love feedback on the following ideas:

Law dictates breaks - if her other hours mean the total working day changes the breaks required - these additional breaks will not happen during the hours contracted to us.
No preparation for, conversations about, emails or meetings will happen about the other child during the hours contracted to us.
There will be no interaction (as much as possible)/joint supervision of the other child during hours contracted to us.
If there are special events/trips - she must make herself available for for our child.
We reserve the right to change her hours to fit our child's needs.
At the start of the school year, she must not fix her hours for other children until our child's need have been defined. This could take up to 4 weeks.
She should also be available for more hours during the 'Back to school' phase until he is settled (this often means full days in the beginning.)

I also wanted to know what happens legally if she is injured during her other contract time? What rights do we have to protect our own child's needs during that time.

Thanks in advance to those who might be able to give input into what is/isn't reasonable.

Tbh, most office type jobs I have had have assumed similar if employees had a second job. I don't know where you stand legally, but I don't think most of your suggestions are unreasonable. The remainder of her working day is not your concern, so you shouldn't need to pay her for any break that anoyher employment renders necessary. She shouldn't be doing work for other employment while under your employment, may have to have flexibility in hours in order to make job work etc etc, all these are very standard.

YABVVU. You expect her to keep herself available all the time on the off-chance you want to book her!?

@jeezoh Yes we probably do need exclusivity but I dont think we can afford that. So we just have to suck that up and maybe have a back up plan in place if she cant be free.

I agree with the advice others have given but just wanted to add that I very much sympathise with how you must be feeling. It would make me feel quite betrayed by the other family I think.

Whatever you decide I recommend you having an informal one to one chat with the helper to discuss your worries. It may be she has thought about it herself and has some suggestions that might work.

Just out of interest, is this woman your child's carer or is she a teaching assistant in school that you pay for out of your DDs personal budget? I ask because I'm a Senco in a state school and I know parents are entitled to a personal budget if their child has an EHCP. That being said, I don't knownofnany schools where parents take this up.

I think it’s reasonable to request that when looking after your dc, that the carer doesn’t spend any time dealing with email, phone calls relating to the other child.

This would also apply in reverse - when not looking after your child the carer doesn’t spend any time dealing with email, phone calls relating to your dc.

“Girl” - is she a nanny?

I truly hope you did listen and will act on the earlier comments OP because your opening is absolutely shocking, it sounds like you view her as property you have a right to and that you won’t share with anyone else ... even though you don’t even pay her full time. If she treated your child the way you are talking about her I’m sure you’d fire her in an instant, that is terrible.

Yes we probably do need exclusivity but I dont think we can afford that

Sadly if you can't afford to be her only employer then she can do what she likes outside of her contracted hours.

These are the only ones of your 'rules' that are reasonable, as long its on a vice versa basis:
No preparation for, conversations about, emails or meetings will happen about the other child during the hours contracted to us.
There will be no interaction (as much as possible)/joint supervision of the other child during hours contracted to us

@Soontobe60 She's a teaching assistant in a private school that we pay for 100%. The hourly rate we give her makes her salary pretty much that of a full time salary in a state school for less than half the hours.

Oh, she’s an in school support worker. Yes, you have no right to set ‘rules’ that prioritise her time for her, and she could rightly tell you to bugger off. I am sure she is a woman, not a girl. Or at least I hope she is.

The Op accepted that she was being unreasonable quite early in the thread so why are posters still piling in? Read the thread!

My employment contract requires me to obtain my employer 's approval for any second jobs. It also places restrictions on additional employment similar to those you describe - e.g. No work for second job in my employer's time and I couldn't work for anyone in competition with my employer.

These are standard contract terms, yes, because you can't introduce them retrospectively if there is a problem. But a sensible employer will not enforce them lightly. Obviously if you are doing your second job during the hours you should be working your first or moonlighting so much you're completely exhausted they have a legitimate reason to step in, but generally a good employer should also trust you to manage your own life if you choose to take on a secondary source of income, just as they don't get involved in whether you volunteer a lot or game all night.

Any employer who came in heavy-handed like the OP's initial proposal could expect to lose that person and would certainly lose their commitment and engagement immediately. And that's when the person is FT - when you can't offer someone paid FT hours you don't really have a leg to stand on trying to block them taking a second job, tbh.

It does sound as if the OP is thinking more rationally now. I hope you are able to work out a compromise with your employee that works for all of you

I would not place any restrictions on her. It is up to her to juggle both jobs for you and other parents. I would just go by results. So long as your child is happy and cared for, who cares if she takes a call or does an email occasionally? You’d want her to be available for you to ask a quick question or respond when she is with the other child, right?
If performance becomes an issue, address it then.
Obviously if she becomes sick or injured that would happen whether she had just your job or two jobs. You need back up care anyway.

@8Iris8 totally - we already do this - ie are only in touch during the hours she works so that we are not bugging her outside of her paid hours.

Love I'm a nanny if you presented me with those “slavery rules”

I’d tell you to find another nanny. You do not own her, she is a professional who will coordinate her jobs to fit in with both families etc.

I have not read the whole thread.

1. Is she an employee or self employed? That makes a massive difference to the legal position. Eg we had a cleaner who came when she chose and had lots of different customers just like I as a sole trader have a lot of different clients and am no one's employee.

1. Or is she a part time PAYE employed employee? I suspect the latter as you mention work breaks etc.

1. Many full time workers have employment contracts set up at the start which say they can only have one full time job -0 and I know that seems a bit mean but they will say if you want to coach a football team for pay at weekends jut seek employer consent (whereas if the consent was for a rival business they may not consent - that is all perfectly lawful if set up at the start or volunarily agreed to later).

1. What you are suggesting sounds a bit like nanny share agreements between two parents actually where there may well be non poaching clauses and clause about which parents has primacy in terms of the work usually the one who pays the most and has the most children to be cared for.

If someone is part time but without fixed hours like mililons of zer hours workers they often do have to be available for shifts at the last minute which prevents them taking a second job but is not very fair for part time salaries. For a full time salary it is the norm that you cannot take second jobs particularly in offices, as employers do not want people leaving at 5pm on the dot to work 6 hours in their factory every night when instead they might be required for over time until 9pm.

Figamol the rate if pay may be equivalent to that of a ft TA in mainstream. However, that still isn’t a lot, and you want far more flexibility than would ever be asked of a school TA.

@GrimalkinsCrone I really am - and am grateful :) I'm pretty sure it'll all be fine now.

You brought this competition upon yourself, maybe a little more discretion was required. However, what if this lady had children of her own, there would be some blurring of the lines you mentioned, as she juggled her time with that of her children. In order to carry out her work effectively she will need flexibility, sometimes where a child is finding a task challenging it is best to drop it completely and either do it at a different time, or from a different angle. Dont restrict her job with rules, just let her get on with it.

@Notodontidae Yes I was bit naive - I thought I was helping another mother and it seems I inadvertently ended up where we are now. Think we can probably drop the rules and just have an honest conversation.

Sadly unless you are contracted and paying her full time, there is little you can do about what she does in her own time.
You can specify what happens within your contracted hours ie she does not monitor the other child during the other time

So does your child have an EHCP? I'm struggling to imagine this set up, but that's possibly because I've never worked in a private school.
Our LA does, in exceptional circumstances, fund places in private schools which specialise in children with SEMH needs that cannot access either mainstream school or state funded special schools.

In m school we have TAs supporting children with EHCPs for a range of hours. So one TA may cover 2 lots of part tîme hours. This benefits both children as each knew may have times when they need additional support or times when they need no support. It just isn't possible for almost meetings to be scheduled at specific times. If you pay for 15 hours and the other parent for 10, the TA is therefore available for 25 hours and outside of core 1:1 hours I could see a bit of flexibility benefitting both children and possibly saving you some mòney in the long term.
Depending on the needs of a child, having too much 1:1 support can be very detrimental. It develops the 'Velcro TA' syndrome rather than promoting independence. If you're paying for this, the TA will be reluctant to step away from your child in order to help foster that independence.

I'm glad you're taking on board what people are saying. You do need to change the way you refer to her - she may be young and an employee, but she's an adult woman and forgetting that will lead you into alienating her.