Nanny holiday entititlement and what about when you go away?

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Hi all,
I am in the process of employing a nanny as I'm going back to work. One of the best candidates has informed us she has 2 * 2 weeks holiday already booked over the next year, none of which fit into school holidays when we would be going away or taking leave, so obviously we would have to sort out alternative childcare cover for all of those 4 weeks. I can understand that we could just wear this for the first year and then contractually say after year 1 then it's the 50/50 spilt on choice. My question is that when we then go on holiday at the times we choose or take leave she obviously will not be required for work so I'm assuming that it isn't unreasonable to say that she has to take our hols as unpaid leave as she has already used or booked in her whole paid holiday allocation (excluding BH's)? Even if we are in normal 50.50 land and we use leave beyond her 4 weeks and so son;t require her for work - what is good practice - obviously she gets additional leave but would it normally be unpaid? Advice please?!

I'm a nanny and as she has already booked 4 weeks holiday, I would say that she has to take two of those as unpaid as she is over her entitlement. Then the time when you are away you can then ask her to do child related jobs for you, spring clean the children's room/s, batch cook for the freezer, sort through clothes and toys and take grown out of to charity shop/hospital/second hand shop/or if you are lucky, do an NCT sale! Or pack them up for storage for the next one. I have vaxed carpets in nursery/playroom, stored all baby equipment in the loft, I even sanded and revarnished a small kitchen table (bosses were away for a month!)

If, in due course, you go over your entitlement, you can ask her to do the above while you are away, but I would put it in the contract.

These are things that I have happily done for my previous employers, including house sitting while they are away (basically having a holiday in a huge house! My bosses have been very laid back and have encouraged me to have friends/family to visit and stay. They say, if they can trust me with their children who are irreplaceable then they can trust me with their house/belongings which are insured!) they leave me a list of jobs to do and I have to finish them by the time they get back. Generally the jobs take up less than a third of the time they are away and that includes very short days!

I don't think these are unreasonable things to ask.

would you be happy if your boss told you they were going away and you had to take that time off as unpaid?

Nannies get paid for the hours they're contracted to you for. If you choose not to use those hours, you still have to pay for them

Thanks Callaird that was really helpful. I understand your point Paula and would agree under normal circumstance , however I believe that the norm is employer chooses 50% of nanny holidays allocation and nanny chooses 50% in the spirit of fairness. I don't have enough leave to cover the 4 weeks she has already booked and then actually have a family holiday myself, so I will have to pay for alternative childcare cover for the 4 weeks she is having (which she may or may not be paid for all of that) plus pay the nanny for any weeks we are having - surely that can't be fair on us?

its tricky isnt. do you go away on holiday each time you are off work on holiday. could you maybe need 1 week off to stay at home, having lazy days with the kids , gut house then your husband could do the same the following week. then at least that would cover one of the nannies 2 week holidays plus still leaves use 2 week for a family holiday.

You should pay her for those two weeks because (i) it would be difficult to draft a contract that allowed you not to; (ii) it is morally correct to do so - you can't penalise her for having booked holiday that is not convenient for you before she even met you; and (iii) even if she accepted the job it wouldn't get the relationship off to a very good start would it?

I think you should just suck it up and let her have the extra this year.

I do see your point, but you say she is one of the 'best candidates', if she is that good she will probably get offers elsewhere. Do you think she will take the job with the people demanding she take half her holiday unpaid? If she is as good as you say and you want her, let it go.

To give a different view - it's not happened to me before, but if it did, I think I would probably suggest no pay for the 2 weeks (or maybe 50% pay at most). Paying for 2 childcarers for 2 weeks would cost £1300 extra full time, not to mention the cost and time for recruiting a temp for 2x2 weeks. If she's already a nanny, she must have realised that booking holidays outside school term was a risk with future employment.
It's not a black and white issue though and I can see both sides of the argument. But ultimately you're the one setting the terms and conditions of the employment and you should do what you think is fair (within the law, of course).
What you consider is "fair" may not be what the nanny considers fair, in which case she may decline the job, but I think it would be better anyway if you can find someone who agreed with your view of fairness.

MrAnchovy I would agree if it was two weeks, after all, as OP says, it is usual for family to choose two weeks and nanny to choose two weeks, but new nanny has chosen two lots of two weeks holiday during term time that OP can cover by taking holiday but it will mean that she won't have any holiday entitlement left to take her family away during the school holidays.

As Novstar says - if she has been a nanny before, then she would have a fair idea that she wouldn't be able to take 4 weeks holiday of her own choosing.

I'm a nanny and do not think this is fair on the OP!

history talk to her, tell her what you have said here and ask if she would be prepared to take wo weeks unpaid. She may agree, if not and she's the nanny for you, then as the others say, suck it up this year but sure it's understood that it is not to happen again.

Oh, MrAnchovy I usually agree with whatever you say! Apologies!

I don't think 50/50 is a good idea. I also don't think it's normal practice as I've never had that in any nanny job and also not in any non-nannying job. So to me it is Not Normal.

As the employer you can decide to approve or not approve all requests an employee makes for taking holiday. In a good working relationship with a nanny I feel that the employer tries to accommodate the nannies wishes as much as possible, whilst at the same time not making it such that nanny gets 100% choice.

Some nanny employers may well go on holiday more often than the nanny is legally entitled to take off as holiday. In that situation, the nanny could well be asked to do some duties at their place of work but many nanny employers I feel would give the nanny the extra time off.

The contract/written statement I feel is setting out the minimum holiday entitlement, not what may actually happen in reality. If you were going away for 6 weeks this coming year, you would not want to write 6 weeks holiday into the contract, as in the following year you may only go on 4 weeks holiday, or even none at all.

As a nanny, if my boss has approved all the holiday dates I have requested and then my boss decides they are going to take additional holiday, I would not be happy to take unpaid leave, as I've kept to my side of the deal which is that I would request holiday and they would approve or deny my taking that holiday.

So I don't feel it's on to ever in the position of not paying your nanny. Your nanny is signing up to a job which is all year round, not a job which is only at the times you decide you are not going on holiday. Ok I know you are not likely to decide to go off for a 3 month period, or take lots of weeks off here and there, but some people might. You agree to pay an Annual Gross Salary based on the working hours done and to include the holiday entitlement (at least statutory minimum of 5.6 weeks if they are a 5-day a week nanny). Nannies budget on getting their annual salary. If you were to then decide that some days were unpaid... then you would no longer be paying that annual salary... so I feel it would breach that part of the contract.

So I feel that if you decide to go on holiday more often than the nanny is entitled to do so, then you either give the nanny the time off as paid, or you ask them to come in and do some household duties (though finding enough of those to fill full days/weeks I feel may be quite hard).

You want to keep a nanny for many years... be nice to them... if you go away more often than the nanny is entitled to take off... give them the time off Paid.

I don't quite understand if the posters who think the nanny should just be paid expect that the poster (and her family) should not have a holiday this year?
Before my current nanny started she explained she had a busy year and already booked 5 weeks of holiday. We agreed that she would take 1 unpaid and work the other as babysitting or extra days throughout the year.
50/50 split is completely normal.
I think if you have a chat with her and explain that you just don't have the holiday to give her all 4 weeks and will have to arrange (and pay for)alternative childcare during that time.
Otherwise go for one of the other candidates

They don't need to go without a holiday. Assuming the OP has 4 weeks and her DH 4 weeks. OP takes 2 weeks to cover nannies first holiday, DH takes 2 weeks to cover second holiday, leaving them with 2 weeks to take together as a family holiday.

It's not ideal obv, but they don't have to miss out on a holiday all together.

tbh i think its really cheeky of the nanny to want to have 4 weeks off paid for her choice of weeks

im assuming she has a few years of experience as a nanny therefore should know/reliese that most familys/jobs share holiday 50/50 and what she is asking/wanting is unfair

by all means give her the time off for the holidays but tell her that 2 of the weeks will not be paid for

and any holidays over her 4weeks that YOU the employer decides to take should be paid

i actually have written in my contract If we the employers decide to take off any extra time above our 2 weeks holiday, our nanny will be paid in full and will have the time off.

I'm with blondes... I feel it's unfair of the nanny to expect 4 weeks off all of her choice. Though I also feel that anytime over the holiday entitlement that the employer decides to take, should be paid.

Karoleann, your babysitting solution I think probably works quite well, as that is extra working above the contracted hours.

Yes the family should have a holiday - they don't need to hire this specific nanny, they choose someone else. So if they do decide to hire this specific nanny then they need to come up with something that resolves the pre-booked holiday situation.

Maybe the nanny would cancel two weeks of the already booked holiday, if they wanted the job.

Choose one of the other candidates. You d

...you don't have to choose this one if the holiday is going to be inconvenient.

I think you should allow her to take the 4 weeks (obviously) 2 weeks paid, weeks unpaid. You then get 2 weeks choice where she obviously gets paid - anything over and above that, that you choose to take, she gets paid.

wonder if she is telling porkies

not many people (nannies) plan a years worth of holidays when not working

i had to take my 2.5weeks in oz unpaid - was ouch but fab holiday :)

Why would she lie about 2x2 week holidays and give specific dates if she had nothing booked?

Maybe she booked in line with her previous employers holidays and then changed jobs unexpectedly? I doubt she lost her job and thought 'right off to the travel agents I go....'.

I would only offer her two weeks paid, if she complains maybe she isn't the right nanny. She may have a rich partner blondes.

Thanks all - what about sick pay - the standard is SSP I guess but do people tend to do more? We are a bit conscious about not throwing money away on additional leave and enhanced sick pay as we can't afford to!

OP I'm guessing you're maybe asking partially to find out what's 'best practice' in this scenario. Needing to have a discussion like this (when the feeling is the nanny/au pair etc may be showing signs of unreasonableness before even starting) isn't a great way to get things going.

You could hire her and tell her 2 of the 4 weeks would be unpaid which would NOT be unreasonable. But it would need to be managed carefully not to create ill will (if she still wanted to accept the job). We've had four nannies, only one with a school aged child (current). She very kindly doesn't take her big holiday during the terms. If you're saying she wants two continuous weeks off TWICE during the school holiday year - I would be moving on to the next candidate unless there was a really compelling reason you couldn't find someone else (location, hours etc).

Like Blondes I am also wondering if there is an element of porkiness going on here (if the previous family she worked for had school aged children.)

I have two weeks full pay in my contract but my references show that I have had 7 days off sick in 25 years and most of them say "and some days she came to work when she really should have been at home in bed" so new employers can see that I wouldn't take time off just to use up my sick days!

Ask previous employers how much time they had off sick when you do reference checks.

Some employers state SSP in contract and then if the nanny is off for legitimate reasons, they pay them anyway. That way you can pay them the first couple of times and then if you think she is taking the piss, you tell her that any subsequent illnesses will be at SSP, which kicks in after three days. So she will be unpaid for three days.

I'd just leave it as SSP, then you can decide to pay her full/half either when she's been there for a while.
I've only ever paid one day sick and that's when I sent my nanny home.
I've never had full sick pay in my job either, the company just wouldn't pay above SSP.

with regards to her already booked hols it is true that she could not have been expected to accomodate yourselves when she was not your employee, however, it would seem reasonable to suggest that she has either 2 weeks at full pay and the other 2 weeks unpaid, or that she has 1/2 pay throughout the holidays she has booked. if you pay her in full for both, she will, of course have used up her annual leave, other than for bank holidays.(if she only has 2 weeks paid then she will, of course accrue further paid holidays) in the year. it is your choice to employ someone with pre-booked holidays.

perhaps for your next full year holiday entitlement you agree something like 1/2 the hols her choice, the other 1/2 yours.

relating to your holidays, when you will not require her services, why do you think that she should not be paid, it is not her fault that you are going away without her. i always worked on the principle that if she was available and you do not require her you pay her, after all, if you work for an employer and they take time off they do not say to you that they are going on holiday so you are not required and will not be paid
Bank hols are paid as they would be with any employee
Sick Pay - I always went for SSP only ( and this gives you the opportunity to pay extra as you wish, and gives you time to see if they are genuine, or take advantage)