Nanny holidays

[cakesandphotos]

Please bear with me while I try to make this as clear as possible!

I work 3 days a week as a nanny. My holiday period run April to April. As I will be going on maternity leave in January, I asked my boss to let me know how many days holiday I have left to see if I can take some at the start of my mat leave.

She tells me that between April and now I have taken 159 hours of holiday. I work roughly 30 hours over the 3 days a week so that is around 16 days off ( my maths is dreadful so I could be wrong but I don’t think I am) I personally have only taken 4 days off, so roughly 40 hours. The rest of the time, I have been available to work but they have been away or have chosen to have time off to spend with the children.

This seems a little unfair. I would understand if they chose say two weeks and i chose two weeks but they obviously have much more holiday entitlement than me and have used it, using up my holiday allowance in the process. I don’t want to upset the apple cart by pointing this out but only having 36 hours holiday left between now and April (or January as that’s when I’m leaving) seems very little considering I’ve only chosen to take 4 days off.

Or am I just being irrational and unreasonable??

Does your contract set out how your holiday entitlement is to be used?

This does seem unfair but if your contract didn't specify how holiday is decided upon then I suspect you might not have much ground to object - most contracts as far as I know specify something along the lines of half the holiday is chosen by the parents and half by the nanny.

That could be the problem. I never got a copy of my contract. I suppose I could ask for it but I guess it might be too late?

Yes I think you should get hold of your contract asap - you really need to be familiar with what it says.

I thought the standard for nannies was to take half your holiday at a time of your choosing and half when the employer chooses. But you need to see what your contract says.

Ask for a copy as you need it for claiming maternity benefits etc. My DIL had to show hers to make a full claim.