What to do about nanny's lateness?

[HeadFairy]

Our nanny doesn't drive, so I am sympathetic about travelling to work by public transport and how it's not terribly reliable, but our nanny only lives a mile away from us and she's late for work about once a month. This morning she arrived so late I missed my train and was late to work myself. She's been late to collect the children from school a few times too, it's not usually a problem because the school will let the kids sit in the office, but it's not ideal especially as we pay her from 2.30 and she doesn't have to collect the kids until 3 (she only does after school on some days)

Have I reached the point where I need to give her a written warning? How do I go about that, are there any rules I must following I'm issuing a warning?

That is really irritating, isn't it? Why on earth is she bothering with public transport if she only lives a mile away? She could easily walk it.

I don't know the HR type rules but I would say to her that if she can't be on time she needs to be looking for another job.

Do you have a husband? If he was left waiting for her, how would she/he respond?

That's really unprofessional. I would be really unhappy if I was late to work because of this.

Agree with Imperial why on earth doesn't she just walk the 1 mile?!

How long has she been working with you for?

a mile? she can walk that and not be late... what time does she start in the morning and what time do you need to leave? how late was she at the school? If you're still in probation period I'd probably move on now but otherwise, you should serve a written warning (what does your contract say?)

Wow. Being late enough for you to miss your train is a big deal, but an even bigger deal is being late to pick the children up from school. That should only happen in the most exceptional of circumstances.. if there was no good reason, I'd have given a warning there and then. What did she say the reasons were, out of interest?

Your next steps depend on what you want the outcome to be and how long she's been with you. If she's been with you less than two years, you could give her notice and that's that.

However; is she a good nanny generally? Are you happy with her other than the lateness? If so, tell her you want to have a proper chat with her as a verbal warning; tell her that her time keeping is having an impact on your work and the children and that if it happens again you'll have no choice but to give her a written warning.

If she's pretty lax in other areas too, I'd be inclined to give notice if you're able and recruit again.

I think it depends on whether you've given a verbal warning, how long she's been with you and how late she normally is.

If you've given her a verbal warning/spoken to her seriously about it, then the next step is written warning. If you've always been sympathetic/shrugged it off, then it's a big jump to a written warning. Verbal warning first.

If she's been with you 5 years and has been late to school 3 times, it's not nearly the same as having been with you 5 months and being late to school 3 times.

Again if she's 5 minutes late once a month, it's quite different to being 20 mins late once a month. It also depends on your timekeeping. If you're sometimes 5 minutes late then it would be unreasonable for you to be seriously annoyed at her for being 5 minutes late occasionally. If your timekeeping is good, then you should expect good timekeeping in return.

Her excuse this morning was that her alarm didn't go off. I didn't have time to hang around as I had to dash off and try and get to work as soon as possible.

In the mornings she does start at 7am, so it's quite early (on some shifts I have to leave for work at 5am, dh is there until she arrives at 7), I have suggested she walks, but she said it would mean she ends up walking for three hours in one day. I walked past her house in to town yesterday and it's about 25 minutes from hers to ours, it's then half an hour walk to school (well, it's nearer 20 mins, but 30 minutes with the kids in tow because they're a bit slower) then she walks back to hers which is about 45 minutes from the school. It is a lot of walking, I do appreciate that, that's why we pay her travel time.

She's been with us since June, in that time she's been late to collect the kids about four times, she's been late to ours a couple of times and she was late one day during the school hols so my mum had to take the kids for the day as she (my mum) had a load of errands to run and couldn't babysit the kids, but could only take them along with her.

She needs to sort herself out and get some decent walking shoes!

We had a CM who was routinely late to collect DC from school so we let her go. It's one of the key parts of the role to be there on time at pick up!

I was especially upset that she didn't tell me herself about the times she was late collecting the kids from school. I heard from one of the other mothers. She was about 20 minutes late on the last day of term and the kids had to wait in the school office while the others went home ??

She needs to be given some sort or warning. Verbal first if you haven't done that yet.

Did this problem present itself early on or is it now she is comfortable in the role? Did you have a 3 month review?

Same here - and it was that breach of trust that made the decision for us. One of the teachers phoned me to say if it was her child sat outside the office they would want to know

I have been collecting children from school for 15 years and have only been late once (and even that wasn't my fault).

I can understand she doesn't want to walk 3hrs but she either walk to work - cycles do work or gets up earlier and gets earlier bus

She needs to find one that gets to yours 6.50 rather then after 7

I would get a bike and cycle from hers do yours and then walk the school run

No need to be late for school unless a good reason. Being late a few times isn't good :(

What were her reasons?

Making you late for work is a no no

Sit down and tell her she needs to be at yours for 7am - if she is late again verbal then 2nd time written and say if happens again she will be losing her job

You need someone reliable

If I were you, OP, I'd get your mum to pick up the kids from yours one night and have a formal meeting with the woman. She needs to know that it's completely unacceptable.

As for not wanting to walk for so many hours per day, well that's what part of her job is! It's part of her job description to walk the children to school, ffs. And she must have an hour or more to rest if she gets to your house at 7 am, so it's not as though she's walking for a couple of hours without a break.