Nannies-Giving more notice than you are contracted to?

[nannyi]

My nanny friend asked me to post on here to ask people's advice about handing in her notice.

She works in a nanny share and wants to hand in her notice for several reasons. One of these reasons is one of her mb's having another baby and taking an extended maternity leave in December. This seems like a "natural end" to the job as such but we are wondering if it is best to tell them of her intentions this summer with the view of leaving in December or to give them just 4 weeks notice as per her contract nearer the time?

Although she wants to give them as much notice as possible (especially being a share) would her bosses then be able to tell her to leave at any point after the first 4 weeks are up?
Any advice would be hugely appreciated.
Thanks a million!

I / my bosses have always given each other more than 4 weeks notice.....

I normally leave when children start school... and have normally started a new job in September, which has normally been sorted since about June.

I have been very happy in my jobs and am normally sad to leave but me / my bosses typically have at least 3 months notice. Have always kept current bosses in the loop, but as im not normally replaced and its a natural end it works better for everyone when we all know whats happening.

I think they could give nanny 4 weeks counter notice if that's what is in contract but that would be redundancy (though only if they weren't replacing her) and involve associated payments- depending on length of employment. Couldn't just say 'don't come in tomorrow'.

How about the other mum in the share though? Sounds like she would still need childcare? (maybe could complicate redundancy). Would nanny consider just working for them?

I've always had longer than 4 weeks notice because that seems a tad short to me. So for that reason I'd be inclined to give longer but not too much as, and not wanting to ill-wish anyone, a lot can change between now and December.

Be very careful! My nanny friend gave her current family 8 weeks notice as a nice kind of heads up about leaving. She really only needed to give 4 weeks by contract but she wanted to leave on a nice note and let them have as much time as possible to find a replacement. They ended up giving her notice in 5 weeks which meant she was then short of money for 3 weeks as her new job was to start after the 8 weeks she had allocated. They did this purely out of spite as she had had problems there for a while and this was a one up for them over her. Not all families are like this obviously but it does make you think that you have to tread carefully before doing what you think is something nice for someone if they are going to turn it round on you.

Hi,
I think your nanny friend should hold her tongue for a while - atleast until she's absolutely sure she definately wants to leave. The MB goin on maternity leave could be thinking about leaving the share and then the other family might want to look for a new share anyway. Or like cinnamondanish says happened to her nanny friend - the same could apply here - you just can't foretell the future!

Tell her to keep her options open but her lips firmly shut for now! You never know what might happen between now and Dec and she does have 4/5 months to play with.

Good luck to her and hope it all works out!

Another thought - would she be eligible for redundancy? Would they make her redundant? In which case they need to give her notice to get the payout

Any reason she doesn't just ask both families what they are thinking of when the maternity leave starts? If they were hoping to keep her on and the new arrangements don't suit her then she can say so and hand in whatever appropriate notice at that stage.