Would you sack nanny over this?

[YourMerryBrickRobin]

AHave name changed as potentially outing.

Nanny has been with us for 6 years, since our joint biological eldest turned 1 (DH has two kids aged 18 and 14, eldest lives with us full time youngest visits in school holidays)

We have never really had any problems although we will admit a boundary has been slightly pushed lately but we let it go- her long term boyfriend was left homeless, so we agree he could TEMPORARILY move on but would be in the caravan outdoors as he wasn’t DBS checked and didn’t want him staying in the house. He seems a nice enough guy and I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t harm my children and appreciate a DBS doesn’t stop that, but it was a boundary we put in place.

He started coming into the house around the DC while we weren’t there. Got a bit more annoyed, but chose not to rock the boat as Nanny is a diamond

Anyway today- she left our youngest (9 months) in the care of her boyfriend while she went and collected DS from nursery, which is literally a 5 minute walk away. Reason being- we had DDs car seat in our car. She didn’t attempt to contact either me or DH (we are both self employed and always within 10-15 miles of home) despite noticing this morning when she was going to take her to the park (DH dropped DS off, we have 2 same stage car seats hence why it wasn’t an issue with DS this morning)

Im pissed off if I’m honest. Like I said, nice enough guy but don’t know him well enough to look after my child even if it was for under 10 minutes

AIBU?

Never mind, it's already been said re: who's 18.

You’d be within your rights to sack her, but if she’s otherwise good I probably wouldn’t.

It was a lapse in judgement leaving the baby with someone she trusted, she didn’t leave them with a stranger. It is of course unacceptable and she must be told that. And he can’t live there / be at your house again. But if she understands the correction I’d be happy to continue with her as a nanny.

Crime of the century.

Text? No wonder your boundaries are so weak. You live in the same house. Speak to her in person and stop hiding behind text messages.

"Someone she trusted" who she allowed into the house when she knew she wasn't supposed to while OP and her husband were out. That's a breach of trust in itself. And given how many women are taken in by paedophiles who are preying on their children, it doesn't signify anything that she trusts her boyfriend. He may be perfectly innocent in that respect, but he's shown himself to be untrustworthy by coming into the house when he knew he wasn't allowed to.

This is so far from ok I cannot understand why you are agonising over it.

Sack her. She put your child/ren at risk repeatedly.

To be fair- you are right 👍🏼😃

@Mirabai

what else is she supposed to do if she needs the toilet? Piss herself?

You're being unbelievably careless with your children's safety.

You've let an unrelated random male access your young children unsupervised in their home.

He 'seems nice enough' and you're 'pretty sure' he won't harm your children? Are you for real? What do you think child abusers look or act like?

If this is real, you're actually negligent and need to get rid of the nanny and boyfriend immediately, and look at why you put your children in danger like this.

I personally would say to her, please don't leave your BF with them, that has upset me and is not appropriate, and see if she has understood that and apologises. Then say BF has to move asap, but not literally turf him out. He has not done anything wrong! However I find it completely OTT all the people acting as if the BF has committed some terrible crime. This nanny has proved herself and I presume the kids are close to her and love her, who knows who you could get if you get rid of her. It is a lapse of judgement but nothing that bad has happened. There is a difference between good care and being so ultra suspicious that her boyfriend MUST be a huge pedophile. I feel like something has gone wrong in our society. FWIW we ended up with our nanny's boyfriend taking over her job when she went to study. He could not have been more random, recently arrived from Ukraine, but was so kind and just great with the kids. I just find the position of automatic distrust and assuming everyone is an evil predator to be so disturbing.

Can people stop suggesting that the boyfriend is DBS checked? As above, unless you mean the basic check (and that's hardly worth doing) you can't apply for the standard or enhanced ones unless you are an employer and the individual is in one of a strictly defined category of roles. It's not something you can just apply for randomly for your own peace of mind, either for you or anyone else!

OP, you’ve behaved beautifully imho. You were kind and got shot in the foot.

With any luck it’s sorted, but no stropping from the nanny I hope.

And that's before you even get into the fact that the absence of something is not dispositive of anything.

This 100%

I can't help wondering how those who think OP should keep the nanny would react if they found out their nursery had let their children's key worker's boyfriend wander in, change a few nappies, and cover the last hour of her shift for her.

This is the same thing. She is a professional child carer, and to leave her charges in the sole care of her boyfriend is a gross failure in safeguarding and dereliction of her duty.

You've repeated breaches of trust here.
Yes I would sack her. She isn't a diamond as you can't trust her. You've set clear boundaries and she is chipping away at them. Next time she'll just keep quiet until caught out. It's a slippery slope.

Its not so much that she left your baby with him (and i would be livid over that) but actually she is not performing her duty. She is the one with responsibility for your baby - she has just passed that over to someone else without checking with. you. He could be a fully qualified child care worker that works in a nursery with dbs etc etc and it would still not be ok. I would dismiss over that. The fact he is not meant to be in your house is just an added red flag issue. Suspect he is in all day every day tbh.

I could just about get my head around leaving him with the baby whilst she goes off in an ambulance for example - but i would expect you to be told. So that it becomes your decision.

I just don't know where to start with this crap. But I will try 😂

please don't leave your BF with them, that has upset me and is not appropriate woah there, steady on with your words 🙄! You are really tearing her off a strip aren't you!! All she did was leave a vulnerable baby alone with a little known man for 15/20/30 mins (no doubt more than once as this is the only time OP knows about) and you are "upset"?!! She will really have had her arse handed to her with you saying that 🙄

BF has to move asap, but not literally turf him out. He has not done anything wrong! How do you know? You cannot possibly say that - and it is ALWAYS better to err on the side of caution, don't you think? And the OP should not be put in the position to even be worrying about "turfing him out"

There is a difference between good care and being so ultra suspicious that her boyfriend MUST be a huge pedophile It is the NANNY'S conduct we are talking about - dont you get that?? The NANNY is in the wrong, SHE is the one employed, SHE is the one with the massive responsibility to care totally for the children. It would be the same if she had left the baby in Mary Poppins' care - IT WAS NOT HER CALL TO MAKE.

I think there's been a lot of boundary blurring going on. Which I can understand, because after all these years, she must feel like family.

But letting the boyfriend move onto your property was the wrong move. You don't know him from adam, and therefore owe him no favours.

I don't think this is quite fire-worthy for me, but it would definitely be formal written warning. I'm bemused as to why she didn't just put the baby in the buggy for this 5 minute walk to the nursery?

And I think the BF needs to go as a condition for this ONLY being a formal written warning, and not a straight firing.

@YourMerryBrickRobin

I hope you come back to us, with updates.

I thought about this since my initial replies and

many years ago - 40 ish ! :) I too was a live in nanny ( qualified, and usually recruited thru nanny agencies )

before the days of dbs's and safeguarding

and even then it would not be the ' done thing ' to have a boyfriend in the home during working hours - never mind leaving boyfriend to watch over a ( sleeping ? ) child,
in my group of nanny friends we wouldn't have had female friends round during the working day - unless it was another nanny with a child on a ' play date '.

I think nanny will leave, as i think she will prioritise her boyfriend over her work and as already mentioned you need to think about her reference.
This reference will matter a lot to the next family if she continues to be a nanny, she may ( need to ? ) choose to work in a nursery school / day nursery - where her lapse of judgement in a reference will not be of so much concern to her employer ?

finally if she stays / you keep her on, the very least that needs to be done is that she completes an up to date safeguarding course.

@TheLadyOfTheFlowers , all your points are valid and you are entitled to your opinion, just like I am. But you don't need to be rude to get your opinion across - I would respect it just as much if you expressed yourself kindly.

What are you talking about? Strangely the panel at the employment tribunal will be perfectly able to understand that text (as I was) and thankfully don't make decisions based on grammar. It is still evidence and frankly it is more important to get the message over contemporaneously than spend hours on the exact phrasing. You are just being pedantic. Which is fine when its your correspondence, but is just plain rude in this situation.

OP has said a formal letter will follow. She can spend hours on that.

OP do not send this text. It is unprofessional, poorly written, and could be used in evidence against you.

First - your nanny is presumably an employee (otherwise you couldn’t sack her). You need to follow employment law and should get advice from an appropriate source BEFORE you do anything.

If you do not feel it is safe to leave your children in her care - don’t. But sacking her or disciplining her is separate.

It is my expectation (but I’m no expert in your laws) that the fact she is live in complicates things more. Sacking her also makes her homeless, and I would expect there are laws around that in terms of notice, compensation etc.

Second - she did not leave your child with a random stranger. She left the child with her partner, who at your invitation lives with you all. YOU invited him into your home. You can argue that he isn’t meant to enter the house during specific hours all you like - but unless that caravan is equipped as a separate residence I’d expect the interpretation would be that he is your guest in your home. I live in a different country - but if I let someone stay in a caravan in my yard - and I’m not setting things up as a commercial rental - then they are my guests.

The fact that he is her partner doesn’t mean he is safe. But then you have no more or less reason to see him as safe as any other person (including your own husband, step children, friends , family, etc). By inviting him into your home you accepted that he could pose a risk - just like the nanny you hired, your friends and family etc.

Even if he wasn’t to enter the house, and didn’t, you invited him in to your family. If this was some grand scheme to access children for abuse (homelessness is really common where I live, seems weird to think it could be a multi-step predatory scheme rather than just reality of our economy) - and 5 minutes (or even 15 or 20) unsupervised was what he was looking for - he’s had that every time your nanny goes to the toilet, or takes a shower after Bub vimits or s on her, or leaves one child in one room while attending to the other in another room. Because he’s on the premises, and the children see him as safe (cause you invited him to live there! And he’s family to their nanny!)

If you no longer trust your nanny then part ways. But you need to give appropriate notice, and appropriate financial compensation according to local employment laws / your contract.

Living at work brings many challenges, and six years is a long time to live at work. It’s genuinely impossible to maintain proper work/life boundaries when you live at your work full time. My experience is that employers are often perfectly fine taking the advantages of that - but things go poorly when they aren’t willing to take the disadvantages of that - and a major disadvantage of having your staff live permanently at work is that they simply cannot keep their personal lives out of the workplace!

A revolving door of shorter term live in nannies is probably your best bet if you don’t want people to start blending personal and professional too much.

Well said . I totally agree.

@RubyOrca I disagree.

1. BF does not live with them - he has been staying in a caravan on the grounds for a few weeks -with the OP stating expressly that he was not allowed in the house as he is not DBS checked.
2. Whilst I agree OP should speak to her nanny agency for legal advice, I am pretty certain that employment law is on OP’s side - its a gross act of negligence to disregard safeguarding rules AND breech of contract to not only act without OP’s permission but to expressly act in contravention of the (safeguarding) instructions she has given.
3. Nanny will not be made ‘homeless’ - she has gone to stay with her parents while this is sorted out, she can simply stay there. And, frankly, if she has breeched the contract in which room and board is provided as part of the renumeration, then the nanny has only herself to blame if she now has to go back to mum n dad.
4. For gross misconduct you can dismiss immediately. Again, nanny should have engaged brain and also been professional. It was her job to take care of the baby. What if it had taken ill in the 20mins she had been away, what if there had been a house fire? She was employed to be in sole, dedicated care of the baby.