Sick nanny - do people really only pay SSP?

[chandellina]

Our fantastic and reliable nanny of 2.5 years has been off sick for a month now. I've been paying her as normal and plan to reclaim the SSP, though it's not much. However I see in my contract we put a standard clause to pay only 3 days and then she would receive SSP. I have no intention of doing this but wonder if this is really common practice? Seems pretty hard going on the nanny.

Not been in this situation but I think I could manage 2 weeks of full pay and then go down to SSP. It is tough but that's what our work contracts say too. A month is very generous I think but if you can afford it then that's great. If not, then I don't think you need to feel bad about it.

It is standard for contracts to be SSP only (if the contract doesn't mention sick pay, that will be the position). One big reason for this is to protect you against a new nanny turning up for a day and then going off sick: by the time you realise what is going on and give her notice you could end up paying 6 weeks salary for one days work.

So in a genuine situation most employers give full pay during the three 'qualifying days' when SSP is not paid and make up SSP to full pay thereafter. There comes a time when this becomes unaffordable though, and most people would consider a month (or even less) to be the time to think seriously about what is going to happen in the short and long terms.

I think it really depends on your funds, the illness your nanny is suffering and if you need to have a replacement nanny. I've been off sick 7 days in 25 years but only two consecutively, never needed to be off long term, thankfully. But should I need to be, my employers could not take a lot of time off work and probably not afford to pay me my full wages and a temporary nanny for a long time and to be honest I wouldn't think it would be right. I have 3 weeks full pay in my contract and live-in (seperate accommodation) so any help they had would be live-out and so be more expensive than me (and trust me, I am pretty expensive!)

If you know when she is coming back then I guess you can plan a bit more, maybe get family to help cover but if you have no idea how long she will be off for, then you could be looking at months of covering two nannies and that could work out very expensive!

Sorry, rambled a bit there!

I think a weeks sick pay is fair tho I have more in my contract

Most Nannies will generally come in on their death bed as know taking time off is hard to cover

Saying that a friends boss has had off maybe 2/4 days off every month since she's worked there (6mths) and had a day off for a sniffle yet when my friend caught flu and was flu she wanted to take the Friday off an try and recover in 3 days of weened and boss made her feel very guilty

Our nanny is in the mend so I know there is a limit. She is definitely the type to work when at deaths door but this illness really knocked her out and she had little choice. I suppose it makes a difference that we already know she has such a strong work ethic. I'm not happy about paying for care we aren't getting but I wouldn't want to dent her finances either.

Its fortunate for your nanny that you can afford and are willing to pay her in full for a month of sickness.

Lots of other nanny employers (and other employers, I'd imagine) are simply not in a position to afford this. It comes down I think (for us) to who would be looking after the DC whilst nanny is off sick. Is it someone who does not expect payment (in that case, I can see how you could afford to continue paying nanny)? Or is it MB or DB (and are they losing holiday/taking unpaid leave to do that (in which case they might not be able to afford to pay nanny), or a stand-in nanny (same applies)?

Nanny will still have the same holiday entitlement when she returns from sick leave I'd imagine, so if your holiday has now ben taken up looking after DC, you will still need to find (and pay for?) childcare during ehr holiday later in the year.

I hope your nanny gets better soon!

not all employers can afford it unfortunately. we had a nanny who went on sick leave for 7 weeks - and both my husband and i work full time so we had to pay two temporary nannies to cover for her and the agency fees associated with finding the temps.
we did pay her in full for the first two weeks (from memory) - but if we continued to pay her full salary, then we would have paid £1000 net per week for childcare and what's that closer to £1500 per week incl tax and NI? just too much money and unsustainable especially as we didn't know when she was coming back.
In the end, the employment became untenable and our nanny previous to the one who became ill came back to work for us again (hopefully to stay for the next 10 years