Nanny asked for holidays but not enough accrued days yet

[LivingOnTheDancefloor]

I am trying to be fair with my nanny, but not sure how to handle the following:
She has been working for us part time (3d/w) for a month. Last week we had a family holiday, so she had the week off - paid.
She asked me this morning if she could take a week off at the end of August.
My issue is that if I am right in my calculations, she "earns" 0.32 days holiday each week (3 days x 5.6 / 52 weeks), so considering she already had three days off, she won't have accrued enough days by then.
If I take into account the two August bank holidays, it will take her until mid October to start accruing more holiday days.

I am a bit uncomfortable as if she decides to leave or we decide to end her employment, I can't imagine she would repay the paid days off she didn't "earn". So basically I am taking a gamble...
I wouldn't think like this if she had been with us for years, but it has only been a month, and my husband and I have some reservations so I am not 100% sure we will continue long term with her.

Any advice? What is the etiquette in this situation?

I'm a nanny, totally acceptable for you to choose half her holiday as long as you are playing her for any extra days you decide to be away for. Just to note though there's only one bank holiday in August!

It depends what your contract says. With some nannies it is agreed that family chooses half and nanny chooses half - so you need to check that as if so then yes she has no hours.

Could you not allow it and ask for hours made up at a later date?

personally as you chose the first time round and she is asking for leave later I would take the risk she would carry on working for you as it won't be a large risk. Fundamentally if she leaves she needs to give one months notice and any holiday plus or minus would be deducted then, alternatively she could take it partly unpaid.

As far as I'm aware, an employer can tell you when you are taking your A/L - this is what happens during compulsory shutdowns such as Xmas (where I work is closed from Xmas eve until the day after new year so I have leave deducted for that automatically), and summer shutdowns like some factories do for two weeks in August. It doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

Would be a good time to sit down and discuss how holidays are going to work. Go through a calendar and highlight all the days that are known holidays. For example, if you do not require them to work on a Bank Holiday then put all those that occur on working day on the calendar.

The 50:50 thing I find can be a bit of a pain but it is commonly used. 50/50 is usually done after taking account of all the bank holidays. Consider cams, if you don't want them to work and they want time off - then whose choice do they come out of?

Make sure contract has a clause in it about recovering holiday pay in the event of leaving part way through a holiday year and being over entitlement.

Also make sure the contract says something about what happens if you take more days than your 50% share, such as nanny can be assigned other tasks, is paid in full but not required to come to work.

Flyingfruit right, just one bank holiday. I got confused with the Scottish / rest of UK summer bank holidays... Thanks for pointing it out

you havnt done anything wrong apart from not sort out the contract and all terms and conditions BEFORE your nanny started, then this wouldnt have happened, or you wouldnt worry what would happen if she left early as would owe you holiday

yes usually nannies have 50/50 choice of holidays, so you went away she needed to be paid, which you did :)

so yes she should be allowed her time in aug

Very common for it to be a 50/50 split. To be fair you sounds like you do know what you're doing. You've clearly done your research and know that you must pay her if you go over your own holiday allowance. I've never heard of earning your holiday. Normally you're given a set amount of holiday and you can ask to use that whenever. She wants it in August so she obviously just wants to go away.
I don't understand why you haven't sorted a contract out yet though? That should be signed before starting. It's no wonder you're weary as you've nothing signed to fall back on if anything goes wrong!

Agree things via email, so then there is a correspondence trail.

Contract (written statement) does not have to be provided until near end of 2nd month but a lot of nannies will want it before starting or shortly after. So do chase up whomever is providing the contract - bespoke contracts do take time to write so they can take a week.

Meanwhile, get to the habit of using email to correspond about anything contractual (pay, working hours, holidays) so you both have a trail to refer back to in future. Verbal discussions are good, do talk about things, but do follow it up with something written (email these days).

"P1nkP0ppy

If you're making her use her A/L when you have your holidays then she'll never be able to have any say or choice in the matter.
So effectively you dictate her holidays.

Stuff that for a monkeys."

That's the law in the UK. Most employers allow a choice, but legally they can dictate each and every day of leave if they wish, as long as the employee is able to physically take all of the statutory annual leave as laid out in law.

50/50 totally normal in my experience with nanny contracts and reality is often that nanny ends up with an extra 2-3 weeks holiday since the employer rarely enforces any work whilst the family are on holiday for the additional family holiday where the nanny is not required to take a/l.

However I'd be more worried that you have so little confidence in your nanny staying beyond October and you potentially being "owed holiday back". Maybe you need to think about how you address that particular worry - it's so stressful if you're in a situation where you think your nanny might leave at any time.

I think 50:50 is fine but I'm glad you are allowing her the holiday request as it's because of your decision to take a holiday in the first three months that she has used that allowance.

DB has an accrual system for holiday, but unlike everywhere I've worked, he can carry forward as many days as he likes.

I think you've done the right thing to allow her the leave.

But to give context to those who are shocked at having to accrue holiday, I have an office job and I've always had to (although it's not usually strictly applied once you've been there a while). I remember being refused AL my very first year of working (at a big consultancy) because I hadn't accrued it - and I think I was only a half day short. In the OP's case, her nanny will have used 7 days of her 17 days total within her first 2 months - which I suspect most employers would question.

Choosing days 50-50 is completely normal - otherwise the family wouldn't get to choose any says since they would have to use all their AL for the nanny's chosen days. Only fair to split the choice.