Have overpaid nanny who is leaving. How do I handle this well? Advice from nannies and employers pls

[tiggersreturn]

My nanny works part time in school term and full time in school holidays. We agreed at the start of her employment that she'd rather be paid an averaged sum each month than the actual hours she works as it makes it easier for her to manage financially.

I'm about to go on maternity leave and my nanny was aware of this. I was going to offer reduced hours in the school holidays (as I can't afford to pay full ones and have no need of them if I'm at home) but before I could do so she handed in her notice after an incident.

I have just managed to get an answer out of my tax people on what the salary position is. If I don't pay her for this month I will have overpaid her by about £700 because of the hours she's worked and when she has taken her holidays (during school holidays generally).

I have no intention of trying to reclaim this from my nanny. I very much doubt that she has that sort of cash sitting around. In fact she probably owes me more than that because as a goodwill gesture (and to prevent her coming into work sick) I've been paying sick pay where the contract only provided for SSP after the usual period.

What I'm more concerned about is that she is obviously expecting to be paid for working her final month (part of which is holiday) and while I do sympathise with her position I can't afford to overpay her anymore.

How would you recommend handling this? I have a leaving present for her but that's hardly the same as your rent money......

Her last working day is next week and I'd like to explain what is about to happen. When is the best time to do this?

It's p.a. split into equal monthly basis as the hours vary. The problem is that what should have been an equal monthly basis has now become a consistent overpaying plus too much holiday taken (i.e. 100% more than she's currently entitled to) to compound the problem.

I think you should tell her now. IF YOU trust her enough to look after your child you should trust her enough to not leave you in the lurch. I was really hurt when I discovered my boss had given notice ages before she gave me it. She acted per our contract but it still felt like she didn't trust me to stay until it suited her for me to leave.

TOF - see my post below. I have done.

It can only be overpaying if on an agreed hourly rate. Teachers are not overpaid if they leave after the end of the summer holidays for example as their contract is per month for their employment- not their services per hour. They also do not have to 'pay back' holiday.
I would imagie that you are lucky if an hourly rate wasn't actually in the contract as the basis of your agreement and that the nanny is ok with the idea of overpayment. I see your point but really important what the contract actually expresses.

Oligo the contract was fine and allowed for deductions in these circumstances. The problem was morally.

Oh well if you've both worked out then thats great.

tigger being nosy what was the incident? Am so very nosey!

I'll leave you guessing as there are so many specific details here that if she uses mn she'd have no trouble identifying herself and I don't think that's fair to her! Let's leave it as there was fault on both sides and lots of learnings to be gained.

Good to hear there has been a conclusion to this. I had been wondering how it would get resolved.

Given that this situation can occur for other employers of nannies, is there anything that can be done to help this sort of situation from not occurring? I'm not sure there is anything that can be done apart from to remind nannies on this type of agreement that leaving part-way though a year could cause a problem with salary overpayment.

I think a lot more reminders on the effects of leaving early particularly each time holiday is booked. Also when holiday requests are made making it clear how many hours are being used and therefore what that does to the total amount of holiday left. I think I needed a better structure for giving holiday and perhaps doing a combination of unpaid leave if a certain % are requested during the holiday timetable as while I had no problem giving those holidays from a practical point of view, if they had been unpaid over a certain amount of hours it would have kept the amount that is owed to me down to much more reasonable levels.

The problem is that it is difficult to manage this type of structure and while I absolutely sympathise with an employee's need to have a set amount coming in each month rather than peaks and troughs it does mean that the employee also needs to keep in mind that if the employment terminates before the heavy hours months then there may well be holiday issues.

At the same time I wouldn't want to refuse anyone time for their holidays as so long as they're not unreasonable I don't think any employer should refuse.

Happy to hear any further suggestions.

I don't know if this is any help to you but this is what happens at my work place which has people working annualised hours and various other patterns.

Annual leave is accumulated over time eg 2days/month, this is then counted in hours (so 48/month) and taken in hours. If someone has a letter from God then they could take all that in April at the start of financial year. Restrictions are placed upon how much annual leave can be taken at certain times so currently, June to September = 2 weeks max. Some areas cancel all a/l over Christmas.

If an employee decides to leave the organisation then they are encouraged to use up outstanding annual leave. If they have too much booked then that annual leave could be cancelled or (at mangers discretion) taken as unpaid leave. If too much annual leave has been taken and none left to cancel then either the employer could deduct from wages or the notice period could vary. So eg 48hours overtaken could extend notice period by another month.

Thanks Boysrock. The only problem with that system (from a personal point of view as I've had it imposed when on probation) is what if you really need to take holiday before you've accrued enough? I've had it with religious festivals where I can't work and I imagine others have non-negotiable dates of already booked holidays or family events which would be really distressing to miss. I am a fan of flexibility if it can work and of treating employees as adults who can manage their own lives just there might need to be a bit more guidance with nannies in their early 20s

I've been away for a few days and missed all of this, otherwise I would have made a few comments - I'll make them now in case anyone googles and comes up with this thread. I'm glad it has all worked out now for the OP.

1. Whenever you have this kind of arrangement, it is essential that the contract deals specifically with what happens at the end of the contract (and at the end of each year). If your payroll agency provided the contract and they were aware of what you were planning to do, you may have a claim against them for any losses you have incurred.

1. When you are working out how much to pay, make sure you err on the side of paying too little. For instance always assume holidays are taken on the days which would be 'long', and don't forget about bank holidays. It is much easier to pay extra if more time has been worked than it is to reduce pay if it has been less.

1. Be very careful if you are familiar with teacher's contracts and want to model a nanny's contract on the same basis - remember that a teacher works full days in term time and not in the holidays, and their leave year starts in September. So they are always 'behind' - they work for 10.5 months being paid for less work than they do so that they can be paid during the long summer holiday when they are not working. The opposite is true for child carers, particularly if they start in September - they will be 'ahead' for the whole year, being paid for the long days they won't actually work until July and August.

1. If you have this kind of contract, it is essential that you keep track each month (or each week if paid weekly) of time that has been worked and time that has been paid so that there are no surprises if anything unexpected happens.

1. If someone has had time off sick and you have paid them full pay, you can't later change your mind and say you will only pay SSP for this time (although you can correct a mistake if for example you didn't tell the payroll agency in time for them to adjust pay - but to do this fairly, you must inform the employee of the mistake as soon as you discover it, and tell them when you intend to correct it).