Nanny Shares - making it work

[NiftyNanny]

Hello!
I'm a nanny & I'm currently looking for a new job after being made redundant.

At this time of year there are slim pickings & I'm seeing a lot of families teaming up to offer a share. However, I've been asked how I would "manage" a share & "cope" when one family went on holiday, whether my rate is different for one family or two?

Well, um. AIBU to expect people who are teaming up to offer a nanny post to sort out who pays what & my rate be consistent? I'm not able to work ad hoc and expect to have a regular salary as I would in any other position. I'm available to care for one, both or either of the children so I would charge my usual flat rate and they can figure out percentages based on which family needs most care. Then I'd get my salary probably from one of them to avoid the tax free allowance coming off one paycheque and not the other? right?

I'm interviewing on Thurs with a group of three families so any advice people have on how nanny shares "usually" operate would be appreciated. I'm able to juggle the communication aspect of a changing number of kids, but I don't really want to juggle the financial ups and down of X family deciding they need less care & losing their chunk of my income - I'd much rather find people who know that between them, they can provide my basic salary on a regular basis.

Hmmmmm? if only I still lived in West London ;)

I will be watching with interest. We have a nanny a if we do a share I would expect, as her employer, to sort all this out for her. I would expect her pay to remain constant and would like to know the practicalities of combining pay from 2 families.

From an employer's point of view it is particularly interesting/awkward to split the paycheques, I would've thought. I remember when I was waitressing at 2 jobs, similar hours, but one was considered my primary job & so the secondary one was liable for pretty much all the tax! Do people creating a nanny share perhaps use some kind of joint business account or have an agreement where one family is responsible for the salary?? I wonder if that impacts on voucher payment at all.

Gosh, I don't envy anyone trying to get their head around it. From my side, though, I'd expect varying combinations of children to be part of the contract, and the biggest impact to me to be keeping everyone in the loop. I wouldn't be comfortable taking X amount per child from family a, and X from family b. Sounds like a weird hybrid of childminding & nannying.

NiftyNanny it sounds like the people you are talking to can't actually afford a nanny, and can't even afford a nanny share so they are looking for some illegal relationship where they pay you cash in hand for childcare from time to time and if you only have one set of kids to look after you only get paid half the money!

This is not how it works.

Assuming a full time share it can work one of two ways:

1. The families employ you jointly. This means you have one contract, one wage, one payslip, one allocation of holiday etc. The parents sort out between them how much of your salary they pay, but as far as you are concerned they are each responsible for the payment of your salary.

1. The families employ you separately. Typically this may be that family A employs you during the morning and family B employs you during the afternoon. This makes a few things more complicated but it has the key advantage that it saves you more than £900 and them more than £1,000 a year in National Insurance contributions. It also means that if you qualify, the rates of SSP and (after the initial 6 weeks at 90% of salary) SMP are doubled.

There is no difference between the two arrangements as far as childcare vouchers is concerned, and although in the case of 2. the amount of net pay you receive from family A may be different from the amount you receive from family B, family A will be paying exactly the same amount more over to HMRC as your tax.

Working as a nanny in a nanny share requires you to understand that there is no such thing as "net pay" - in the UK employees are paid a gross wage from which an employer must deduct tax and NI and pay it over to HMRC. So although different amounts may appear in your bank account if you look at your payslips you will see that the gross amount that the employers have paid is the same.

"when I was waitressing at 2 jobs, similar hours, but one was considered my primary job & so the secondary one was liable for pretty much all the tax!"

You have to abandon this kind of thinking - the tax they paid was YOUR tax. If they didn't pay this money over to HMRC they wouldn't have kept it, they would have paid it to you instead. So it is no problem to the second employer, in fact they are slightly better off because they get to hang on to the cash for up to three months before they have to hand it over to HMRC!

Group of three families - that's a worry. As a nanny you can not care for children from 3 different families at the same time. Maybe there will be no times when you have children from Family A, Family B and Family C... or maybe they would try to get you to do that!

They stated in the advert that I would only ever have 2 children at once, but it does sound a bit like a recipe for disaster.

Hmm. I was trying to think of the drawbacks for the employers - but really, it isn't my concern where my salary comes from & what they agree between them, as long as my tax is taken care of & my take home is consistent.

Now I'm thinking about it, of course it doesn't matter whether a portion of the gross amount goes into my bank account or HMRCs! It may just be a headache for them to understand different rates and allowances if they're not using an accountant.

This isn't just in relation to one interview or response, btw -
I have been in touch with two advertisers who are incredibly sketchy on the details of their "share". However, I'm a non-driver and live in an area with very few posts advertised? but I'm smart enough to know I can use my buffer of savings to wait it out until a "real" employer comes along. Sigh!

Are all jobs in your area shares? Two part-time jobs may be better for you, if such jobs come up. I have never done a share but from what I've read on here over the years they do seem a bit of a nightmare, though I'm sure some work out fine.

Hi Nifty

I agree the situation you describe doesnt sound ideal. We have a nanny share with some friends and it works great for us but the employers need to agree the basis of the share between them rather than ask you to do this. As NannyNick said you can only work for two families at one time but the number of children is unlimited.

We have a good share and I thought I would post to put forward the positives..!

In our share there are different hourly rates depandant on which children are under her care, who she has and when is fixed, but this is all set in her contract and she has a standard monthly salary that is consistent. We use a nanny pay company who deal with all the accounting and ensure that both families pay the correct levels of tax and ni.

Prior to the share the families agreed the logistics as to location of care, who provides food, share of kitty amount, share of salary etc. Its quite hard at times to get this all agreed as always difficult to discuss money in detail especially with friends but all good once resolved. Both families similar in outlook and have common desire to provide good working environment. In my view happy engaged nanny = happy children!

The upside is the children have company and get on great guns. I think (hope) our nanny enjoys her job and its quite varied with two "home bases". She earns more than when we started with her as sole employer and gets double the bonus at Christmas! Both parents have nanny care at a very reasonable cost and although we do compromise on some of the extra nanny services as cooking time heavy meals, washing, changing beds etc isnt always possible with up to four children around its a small price to pay.

Good luck on Thursday. Hope you find a role that suits very soon.

Nifty advise the families to use a nanny payrole company like nannytax, they will sort all this out for them (and you).

One of my friends does a nanny share with 3 families (only ever 2 at a time ), she has a different rate depending on how many children she has (up to 4 at any one time) and the families pay depending on how many children they have with her (for example, if she gets £10ph for 3 children, family A have 2 children with her, they pay £6.66 and family B who only have one child will pay £3.34). They give nanny tax all this information and nanny tax sort out who pays what.

Things have moved on since I last did a share but I will tell you what I did in the hope it helps.

Share 1 - 1 child each family. I worked a month with just one child in his house then the second month was in the other baby's house and I cared for both children. I then did alternate months in each families house. This worked fine for all of us. If one child was ill and it was their month I just went to the other house instead and reverted back once the child was well again.

I was paid into my bank account and they sorted everything financial between themselves. The only problem I can remember is when one family wanted to give me a pay rise and the other didn't. They just gave me a bonus, quietly.

Share 2 - Original child from share 1 and then 2 new children. The 2 children were at school so I would spend all day in the younger child's house, collect the children from school and go back to their house after school. All school holidays were spent at the older children's house. I know there were some issues with money but it wasn't for me to get involved and sort out. Holidays were taken at the same time.

Share 3 - New families, 1 child each. 4 days for both children, one day for one child. I did 2 days at one house, then 3 at the other each week. The families had sorted out the money so I got the same each month.

I never got involved in money. I know there were issues and scrupulous checking of accounts but tbh that was nothing to do with me and for the parents to sort out. There were also niggles about Johnny being too sick to be there when mum wanted to go to work but again, I stayed out of it and just did my job.

Thanks for the advice on pluses and minuses of shares, these posts are really useful information for me to have. It's nice to know I'm not being unreasonable for them to agree terms and effectively have a job & salary to "pitch" me. One share I spoke to were hoping for cash in hand (nope!) and I've cancelled the interview as a few serious alarm bells went off in our email correspondence.

Nick - I'm considering two 1 or 2 day a week jobs, too. I'm keeping my eyes peeled for anything. I'm close to Cockfosters but have pretty easy access to Highgate/Muswell Hill in London. I could probably survive quite comfortably on 3 days a week... So it's hopeful that I'll find something. There do seem to be a large number of shares up here that need the hours I prefer to work (I'm rather taken with my 4 day arrangement & would be reluctant to do 5).

Again, thanks for all your help!

We had a nanny share when DS1 was a baby and it worked well. 2 families, 2 children of the same day. I would second the advice about a payroll agency. I worked ft and the other mum worked 3 days so we split all costs 3/8 or 5/8.

Nanny had 4 weeks holiday plus bank holiday. Everyone took holiday at the same time, which is how we " coped" with that. Nanny could pick 2 of her weeks, and each family could pick one week each. This really was not a problem, maybe because the children were pre-school.

We'd discussed sick children before the job started, and also the MMR jab. It helped that we parents had the same views. We were robust about sick kids, and wanted the jab. I have to confess that the other child had had chickenpox before the share started.

Eight years after the share ended, the children see each other maybe once or twice a year. Each time it is as if they had never been apart.

I have shared my nanny with another family for about 2.5 years now.

I used FT, other family 3 days. Nanny charges us the same hourly rate so she gets paid very well for the 3 days she works for both of us but overall we both save on what we would pay a sole charge nanny. We both separately organises taxes and salary (different tax codes as she can only use her tax free allowance with one family).

I am dropping down nannies hours on the 2 additional days I use and, in order to make it attractive to her, have upped my hourly rate in exchange for getting greater flexibility on those 2 days (and, in any event, she was probably due a pay rise anyway).

I like the nanny share for all sorts of reasons, the other family are nice and their children in mine are a bit like family to each other now.

I wouldnt want to work for anyone who assumes that they wont be paying for holidays!