What to do re Nanny..............

[lemonstartree]

Our nanny (our first) has been with us since September. During that time she has had 5 weeks holiday (4 weeks ours and one week hers) Unfortunately she has been offsick a lot - well I think its alot - today is the 9th sick day and tomorrow will be the 10th.

My husband and I both work full time I dont thnk the job is that awfully busy - we have 3 children but the eldest is at school and the middle at nursery for 2.5 hours a day. Its 10 hours a day tho we do try to let her go early once or twice a week.... we have buildres in at the momnet so its not the best working environment...........

we are reaching the end of coping with her sick leave- I do genuinely believe she is ill and its not the paying for it - its the stress and disruption. I think she is generally just prone to picking up germs and things...........

My husband has considered giving up his job to stay at home for a few months - if so she would be redundant - I know we cant sack her for being ill -and I think she is a good nanny when she is here - but we need reliable childcare ,and despite the back up of two reasonably fit grandparents nearby its not possible to constantly dump 3 children on them at short notice..................

any advice ???? How can i say , nicely, sorry but you are not up to the job health wise ???

Our Nanny was with us for 2 1/2 years, and she didn't manage to take that many sick days off. I think she had 3 in total during that time. She was diligent at having a flu jab every year and somehow managed to stay healthy. Even when she was feeling a bit under the weather - as long as she didn't feel it was going to make our kids sick, she would show up for work. Sounds like you've got someone taking advantage of you and obviously doesn't consider how her extra days off are affecting your lives. But, how disruptive on the kids will it be to get rid of her and find someone else?? Good luck, but I know that it would drive me nuts having her pull sickies all the time, and I don't work!

uwila - Do you mean why don't they get holidays and so on? Or do you mean why do they seem to be doing the same job as you/other employees but on different terms? Are you sure they're not employees at all - maybe they are employees, just not of your employer - instead employees of the contracting agency which supplied them?

On holidays etc., if they are self-employed it's presumably taken care of in the pricing of their tender - ie they'll have charged a bit more to allow for time off between contracts, private health insurance, etc.

You could ask them?

Uwila - depends if they're "caught" by IR35 (employees) or not (self-employed). Don't get me started on this - another Gordon Brown nightmare in terms of interpretation.

Once upon a time, before IR35, we could charge more money and pay ourselves more money to cover sickness/holiday pay/etc. But with IR35 (and in particular S660) that is no longer the case.

Why do you think I went permanent Uwila - to get away from the bloody complexities and inconsistencies on MrGB and the Inland Revenue!

I have enormous sympathy with both Lemonstartree and her nanny. I'm a horribly sickly person (colds, D+V, UTIs, currently a vile bacterial throat infection). There are only two reasons why I hold it all together: 1. I can work from home a lot - so I can rest, work, rest and 2. my nannies are much less sickly than me!

I would simply never cut it as a nanny.

We don't choose our genes and unless we are burning the candle at both ends or doing other 'asking for trouble' kinds of things that will eventually make us poorly, we don't determine when we get ill! How the heck can a nanny be held responsible for the number of days she is ill in this way and pay for it with the loss of her job?

The real issue is the lack of workable childcare available and the way in which the workplace still does not allow parents to fulfill the roles of both employee and parent jointly particularly easily.

Compromise should come from large employers not nannies dragging themselves off their sick beds while the fat-cats laugh.

Wow !

arfissimo - my children are 7 (at school,) 3 at school nursery and 13 months. The elder two went to 197 nursery before school/nanny.

I feel terrible about this.
I have had sleepless night and my dh and I have been over and over what the options are.

The fact is that , in the weeks she has been at work, her sick leave works out at almost one day every other week. Its not sustainable. I dont mind paying her, and as I have said I do not think she is skiving, but dh and I have employment to fulfill. dh has lost a week of his 5 weeks annual holiday covering her sick leave. (It dosnt matter now as he is leaving the job anyway) I work in the NHS and have surgery and appointments to turn up for, which it is very very difficult to keep cancelling.

She is upset at losing her job, I am upeset at losing her. But the stress of not knowing what I am doing from day to day with childcare was making ME ill.

so dh will do it for a while and we'll se how it goes.

Nannyme - some people are not fit enough to be policemen, or firefighters and some people are not currently fit enough to be nannies. I would never dream of having said to her 'one more illness and youre out' its not her fault - but how do you suggest we cope with this ?

I completely understand lemonstartree but it was the other less compassionate comments that I objected to. Employee rights are employee rights but I do understand that for employers of nannies who are parents not big companies, it is very difficult to afford to respect and uphold these rights.

This is why I raised the issue of the lack of suitable childcare options available to parents. I could best afford a nanny for my 3, on the one hand, but on the other - if that nanny ever became pregnant or seriously ill I could NEVER afford the sick or maternity pay! The upshot is we don't have a nanny - we struggle on in other ways.

My criticism isn't of you it is of the system - whichever way you look at it, either you or your nanny gets a pretty raw deal. I don't know how one is supposed to cope with a decision like yours and I feel for both you and the nanny.

I think that because you have probably considered how it would feel if your employer treated you in the same way, you found it a hard decision to make. Some of those who replied, I don't think even considered the same rules they were suggesting being applied to them.

Hi i'm a nanny and have just finished for the day! Have got a stinkin cold feel awful could do with going to bed all day tommorrow. But i guess as a nanny i've always known i've got to turn up in the morning come rain or shine and it's one of the downsides of nannying.

Totally understand the parents point of view, you employ us to be reliable and come to work. I've only had 1 day off through sickness as a nanny, don't get me wrong there have been times when i've really needed to be at home and it can really anoy me when my bosses seem to take a day off here and there but then again i don't organise their diaries!

Sorry don't mean to affend any other nannies on here just my point of view .

I have a colleague who always gives her nanny a day off whenever she takes a day's leave. isn't that lovely? Unfortunately she also docks her a day's pay.

Lemon - my DD went to 197 too!

I hope it all works out with your DH at home. It sounds like a really tough decision. My current nanny has had several days off recently for genuine conditions - last week she was hospitalised for a severe kidney infection and she also has terrible periods that feel like contractions. Yesterday she passed out and vomited with the pain.

I'm fortunate that employers in Australia are very supportive and whenever I've had to dash home (she's been hospitalised twice as an emergency in 5 months) they've been fine about it. It makes a huge difference. Plus she's on an hourly rate and chose not to have holiday and sick pay (which I offered along with a set weekly rate) so I don't have to pay for these days.

What are you going to do about the reference? With my former (raging hypochondriac) nanny I felt obliged to warn prospective employers. Its just the stress of hearing that she's not well every day and having to cope with asking if she felt up to working. At the time I was still in the UK and my employers were not quite as supportive about sudden days off.

Most formal references (and I know nanny ones are usually more personal) request simply for you to state the number of days taken as sick leave. It then becomes not a question of reliability, just a statement of fact. I work for the NHS, and have to fill in a form if any of my staff are sick - even just for a day, and if I am concerned the individual will get a referral to occupational health. As an individual employer you just can't do that, but it's the same issue really - is there a genuine problem, is there some stress that your job is causing, or is the individual unsuitable for the post.

I hope your dh enjoys being a SAHD, my dh did that for a year, and I think still misses it, although the children are at school now. Would recommend, as have others, activities etc, but you may find that your dh is content at home - mine certainly didn't get up to much, but they all seemed very happy, and it was great for me!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH

she is off AGAIN.............

i know i need to be compassionate but i am going MAD
dh has had to take the day off again. he is not being paid.

validates our decision really

sorry needed to rant

Oh no. Sorry you are having such a rough time.

Saaaaaaaaaccccccccckkkkkkk heeeeeeerrrrrrrr!!!!!!!