Bloody Nanny driving me nuts!!! Help!!!!!

[ziopin]

Our nanny is driving me bloody mad!!!

She has been with us since September and to be completely honest its been a bumpy ride!

Since September she has at least 7 odd days off on the sick, and now my employer who is not that sympathetic is saying that I should take it as unpaid leave, as its not me or my kids that are ill, but the nanny. Unfortunatley I have no other emergency childcare cover, both my and my hubbys parents live hundreds of miles away.

Our old nanny never took a sick day in the 2 years that she was with us (I know I shouldn't compare!!) but this is leaving me in a very difficult situation.

Also new nanny is pregnant, and she wants to stay on with us when her baby is born, but she is just not reliable.

Am thinking strongly about taking in an aupair as ds in starting nursery in April and dd starts full time school in September.

I know there are some rules with letting an employee go when their pregnant (which I haven't got a clue about) but I just dont know what to do??

Please, any advice greatly appreciated.

Is she genuinely ill?

Well, most of the time, although she has taken a day off to look after her grandfather while her gran does some last minute christmas shopping!!

maybe giving her notice for another nanny she could say u were going it cos she was pregnant but as ud changer her for an aupair ud be doing it because YOUR cirmcumstances were changing if u get me!

You cant sack her for being pregnant and you have to keep her job open for when she returns but is she assuming she can bring her baby with her? That you can say no to. I have been nannying for 10 years and have had 3 days off sick in all that time. You just have to come into work when you are ill, it sounds like she is taking the piss tbh. You should ge some legal advice about getting rid of her. I wouldn't imagine she'll go without a fight if she's pregnant because she won't be able to get another job easily. Good luck

no you can't sack her for being pregnant

but
you can make her job redundant if your circumstances change. If ds is starting nursery in April you could tell her that from April your needs are changing... which they are. if you got another nanny you would be on dodgy ground, but if you don't... then i can't see what you have done wrong.

i am not a legal expert tho!

But as she has been working with you for less than 6 months, I wonder if you can give her notice just saying you will be using a nursery etc.

Check out the Dept of Trade and Industry website - has all the employment law. Can't remember URL but google will know. Employment bit is called Tiger, I think.

Surely you can just give her notice as your circumstances are changing. No one would ever be able to stop having a nanny otherwise.

sounds like the easiest thing is to go with the au pair option and make the nanny redundant - have to make sure the new job is sufficiently different - and might be worth checking just how different it has to be for the first job to be redundant and checking whether you're under any sort of obligation to offer her the new job. and re babies - obviously you can't sack a nanny for being pg, but you are under no obligation to allow them to being the baby to work. in that respect her job is no different from anyone else's.

Reliability is a very important aspect of being a nanny in my view. Genuine illness is another matter, though you should keep tabs on it. Are you actually paying your employee as usual while she is sick, or SSP?

ACAS have a guide for dealing with Employee Absence - ACAS: Dealing with absence
Worth a read, if you are not already doing a return-to-work interview, may be good to start that, so you know (and keep a record of) why your employee was absent. As your employee is pregnant, it is vital that you know if the illness is related to pregnancy.

When is the nannies baby due? - knowing if this date is before, or after April 2007 is important, as there are some legislation changes. Also just to check, are you located in England?

For now, will make the following assumptions:
You live in England, as does your employee.
Your employees baby is due on or after 1 April 2007.
DTI - Maternity entitlement

Your employee would be entitled to return to work following end of ordinary maternity leave. However, it must be the same job... so can't bring her baby to work (as that would then be a different job).

Other than the number of sick days, is there anything else that makes this employee unsuitable for their current position?

a day off to look after grnadad while mummy went granny went xmas shopping

did you agree to that

that is outragouse!

should have saidwhil 8granny* went shopping

(but i think that fact is beside the point )

Why don't you just stop paying her for time off. Does your contract just say SSP?

When my nanny is sick, I take a day of holiday. But, if I was taking the day unpaid, you betya she be unpaid, especially if there were 7 such days in six months. I simply can not afford to pay someone if I'm not being paid.

If you are sure she's taking you for a ride then you should go for the redundancy/au-pair route. If you've had her for less than one year then most employment terms aren't worth the paper their written on, and she can only come back at you seriously (ie it would only be worth her while financially) if she can claim sex discrimination and that she was fired for being pregnant. If you can genuinely show that you needed an au-pair instead of a nanny (and can angle in both the change in circumstances AND the need for a live-in help as opposed to live out) then you should be OK.

However, you should make sure that you are being scrupulously fair on moral grounds here. If she took a sickie for her grandfather then that's reason enough for me to get rid, but if she simply took a days' leave out of vacation entitlement (albeit at short notice) then that to me doesn't sound 'bad' - we've all of us at some time had to take a days vacation at short notice and the fact that she works just for you and not a faceless company shouldn't change this. Also, bear in mind whether her other days off sick are related to her pregnancy. If she's got bad morning sickness and stuff I think it is pretty mean for her to lose her job over it.

We all spend our time screaming for equal rights and fairness in our office jobs and it seems a bit rich for us to be prepared to act the opposite with our own nannies. Yes, I know it really really stinks when we rely so much on one person and have to deal with the fall out when things like this happen, but then that is the kind of thing our employers go through with us, too. I would try to sit down and see if you can sort out a way forward that is fair to her as well. I would try to get her to 'buy-in' to your wanting to get an au-pair well in advance, and try to have a handover period where they are both working. That way she won't feel aggrieved and you part on good terms. Then you will always have a pair of hands locally that might be able to provide that 'emergency' childcare in the future.

Only you can really tell if she is taking the proverbial or not, but if not you really should try and treat her as you would want to be treated yourself.

I would just give her notice tbh. You're not getting rid of her because she's pregnant, it's because she's unreliable. She cannot make a claim against you unless she's been employed a year I think (check, am no expert but this is what I was told by HR at work recently) so you should be ok on that front.

What does her contract say? Provided you comply with the terms of the contract, give her the appropriate notice and pay her exactly what she is due, you should be OK. In fact, you could probably give her more notice than her due by saying that your needs are changing in April and you want to terminate her contract to fit in with that. In fact, if you offer to pay her a little more than her entitlement, she might go without any fuss at all.

What action did you take over the cooking/food issue? Did you give a written warning for instance? Is that still an issue? Is a second warning needed perhaps... which would then mean on third occasion it could be dismissal - depending on how you have worded your disciplinary/grievance procedure. ACAS Self Help Guide: Producing disciplinary and grievance procedures

I believe that you originally employed this nanny on a full-time basis. Then in November last year, you changed to part-time... did that change ever happen? Did that change occur before she told you she was pregnant? What do you have in writing - as all correspondence of this type should be formal, as it helps track the order of events and in this case will help to prove that your childcare requirements keep changing and thus helps backup a case for switching to a different type of childcare provider.

How is the spending money situation? Back in September you were saying that your nanny is spending rather a lot of the kitty - have you reduced the kitty to an acceptable level (I get £4 per day, care for 3 children, though one at school, so could say £2 per child, per day) - it is sufficient for planned activities, and a short train ride.

If you have not already started disciplinary procedures, then start those where appropriate - as making it a formal warning could mean you see a dramatic improvement over the coming weeks.

Talk with your nanny about her sickness, start formal return-to-work interviews so you have a record of why she feels she had to take the time off. As am employer you need to look after her welfare, and to do that you need to know about things that may be bothering her and help if you can.

Think about your changing childcare needs. Notify your employee (verbally and in writing) that you are considering alternative childcare due to upcoming changes. Keep your employee informed - so they can't say at a later date that they didn't know that redundancy may come up. Try having weekly or bi-weekly meetings with your employee to discuss aspects of the job, your employees pregnancy etc.

Clamp down on everything you don't want your employee doing. Never know, a tough regime along with potential redundancy may make her look for a new job.

if nanny is PG and it is PG-related sickness, you have to pay her full pay, normal SSP rules do not apply here. I hate to say Ulwila is wrong, but she's certainly not right.

I had a PG nanny with a v poor attendance record during her pregancy and I'm afraid I have to tell you it cost us a complete fortune. The job survived only because I was on maternity leave for some of the time myself. The Govt will pay nanny's maternity pay for you as you are a small employer once she goes off, but before then you foot the bill. If she's going to be sick a lot, you need to start working on your plan B. You can compel her to go on maternity leave once she gets to a certain level of PG, but that's not for ages.

As a lawyer, tho not an employment one, I really do think you need to be sure about what you're doing: this whole area is horribly complex. My ex-nanny went to the CAB who gave her inaccurate advice. Nannytax have a good legal advice line if you subscribe to them.

The only clear cut thing is that she cannot come back to work with her child, unless you agree. And though there are plenty of threads about how much it costs to employ a nanny and how much they are paid, I bet there's not a nanny in the country who can afford full time child care on a nanny's salary.

"if nanny is PG and it is PG-related sickness, you have to pay her full pay, normal SSP rules do not apply here. I hate to say Ulwila is wrong, but she's certainly not right."

Errr... don't think anyone said the sickness was pregnancy related so my comment is about sickness, not pregnancy related sickness?

However, fridayschild, regarding pregnancy related sickness, I'm not saying you're wrong but I am saying you certainly should read this from the Equla Opportunitie Commission .

You most certainly do not have to pay anyone with pregnancy related sickness more than SSP.

What you do have to do is a risk assesment and if you can not offer suitable work for a pregnant woman then they have the right to be suspended on full pay eg if a job involved heavy lifting they have to accomodate a pg woman and if they can's suspend on full pay.

But you aren't letting her go because she is pregnant, you are letting her go because she is unreliable.

Problem is NAB3, in a tribunal it would be very hard to prove that it was the unreliability, not the pregnancy and if any of the unreliabililty is due to pregnancy related sickness then you are not allowed to include that.

Everything needs to be documented. When she took the day off due to the grandparent was that documented, was she spoken to about this absence or was it let go as one of those things.

If it was just let go at the time it could be seen that ziopin, as an employer did not object.

If however she was told that this type of absence was not acceptible on a regular basis and a note was made of that it can be used.

risk assessment is best practice for a small employer rather than a legal requirement?

didn't realise ulwila could be so touchy...

Awww... just cause you got all stroppy and turned out to be wrong, doesn't make me "touchy".

A risk assessment IS a legal requirement, but you only have to document the findings in writing if you employ 5 or more people.

You do NOT have to pay any more than SSP to a woman sick with a pg related illness.