Would it be ok to offer to reduce nanny's hours when pregnant

[dcb]

Our Nanny has done a great job in the years she's been with us (works part-time for us and also works for another family). We both love having her as do our children, 6 and 4. She's stuggled to get pregnant and has really been through the mill with 2-3 miscarriages. Apart from these she's also taken quite a bit of time off sick for odd days with colds etc, more than you might expect someone to take.

We're delighted that she's now pregnant and just about finishing her first trimester. Obviously it's a worrying time for her. She's already had several days off sick at short notice. We are really struggling as we have no local 'back-up' with family and when I've rang round local nannies/cms they are always busy. We were always planning for her to be made redundant when youngest dd goes to school in Sept and she is well aware of this. In the meantime, we can't afford for either of us to miss any more time from work and neither of us do the sort of work you can do from home as we see patients/clients.

What we have thought of is perhaps using the school pre-school as a back up but they will only let us do this if we commit to extra sessions on those days each week. At the moment this is the only other option we can think of but we would struggle to afford this as well as paying our nanny. DD already does a whole day at pre school whilst we employ nanny so we would be really stretched. This would help until the end of term but then we have some leave booked and could prob manage with friends in school hols/sending to family.

Would it be ok to ask if she would be happy to reduce her hours to enable us to have a more stable plan, from a legal point of view? Don't want to upset her un necessarily. We had been thinking of doing this recently before we found out about the pregnancy because her sick record wasn't great but thought if we could just scrape by until September it would be ok.

And can we still make her redundant in Sept as planned all along?

I know I'm going to get 'flamed' for this and I totally get that she is entitled to the same Maternity rights that I had but it's really hard when she lets us know last minute that she's not coming to work and we're in the shit again.

I think asking her to reduce her hours will be a bit sticky legally now she is pregnant. Although it could be ok as long as you don't reference her pregnancy and resulting sick leave in any way. If you frame it as 'we feel DD2 would benefit from more time at pre-school so that she is ready for reception in September' or similar you might be ok.

You can make her redundant as long as the position is truly redundant. Can you go for full-time pre-school/nursery for the little one and afterschool club for the older one and make the nanny redundant sooner?

I did think of that but I would feel bad as we've always said this Sept. Apart from her sickness record she's lovely and we would love to keep in touch long term as she's part of the children's lives esp. Although it's maddening at times when she doesn't come in, I still want to treat her as well as we can.

Of course you can ask her - but she may say no and I doubt there's anything you can do about that. I am sure you can still make her redundant if you no longer need a nanny - she may still be eligible for maternity pay. But you are not making her redundant because she is pregnant but because you no longer need her.

If you reduce her hours this will impact on her maternity pay. I think that's something you and she need to be clear about during your discussion with her

I think she would be very unwise to reduce her hours at this stage as it would reduce her statutory redundancy pay, if that is all you propose to give her. However, I don't think there is anything to stop you offering a more generous voluntary redundancy agreement, which might suit you both better, and you could then suggest bringing her end date forward as part of the agreement. I'd talk to your payroll people and make sure it is all legal and properly documented.

I don't think you can reduce hours without notice, that will be around 2 months depending on contract which will take you to September almost anyway. If you want her gone by September you really need to be giving her notice soon, otherwise in September she will have another 2 months notice taking you through to November.

Also bare in mind you will need to pay redundancy pay if she has worked for more than 2 years with you