sick leave?

[Maria2007loveshersleep]

Hi, our pt nanny (3 days a week) has had to be off work yesterday & today (sick leave). How does that work salary wise / holiday wise etc? Do you just count these as normal days with normal pay? Recently our nanny (for reasons having to do with other things, us having given her notice, her interview schedule etc, and with my agreement) has been working fewer hours anyway & exchanging with babysitting- but she still works fewer hours on average-, so I wonder how I should deal with the sick leave in order to be fair?

I would just pay her as normal to be honest. If she takes excessive sick days or you think she is not truly sick, then that is when I would revert to SSP only. I am of course assuming that your contract says SSP only.

Yes contract says SSP & yes I feel paying normal is the nicest thing to do, the reason I ask is that recently (on agreement with me, in order for her to manage interviews) she's been working fewer hours than what she's being paid anyway.

I don't understand the connection. Do you mean she is leaving and interviewing for other jobs?

Yes, we've given her notice (2 months notice period) because DS is going to nursery in sept & that worked for us better at this point. I'm just making the point that she's been working slightly fewer hours than normal because I've wanted to give her time to have interviews, so it ends up being quite expensive for me although as I said I've agreed to this. But tbh now that I think of it I feel it would simply be unkind to not pay normal now that she's unwell, so I'll forget the SSP & just stick to the normal salary.

Right, I'm with you now. To be honest I think they are two separate issues. Are you having to cover for her interview time (i.e. come home from work)? And is this impacting your work? If so, I would be inclined to explain this to nanny and say I need her to either interview on her time or take DS to the interviews (if you are happy for DS to go to the interviews).

I'd go ahead and pay the two sick days in this instance. But, I thought knew she was conveniently sick because she had an interview, then I'd move to SSP immediately.

Certainly she's not conveniently sick, she's actually sick I'm certain of it.