Nanny Pay - could I pay her half not to come to work - when I am off??

[knakered]

I work myself on a day rate - so do not get paid holidays - have a full time nanny - but am planning to work term time only...would it be fair to suggest that I pay her a retainer?..so that say for instance I pay her half pay but she doesnt have to come to work during school holidays -- do childminders and nurseries sometimes do this...what would the pros and cons be for both of us??

Well, the cons for her would be only getting half pay. Which I kind of suspect she might not be hog-whimpering wild about. I cannot at this precise moment identify the pros, although I suppose she might get some holiday nanny work.

I only pay my childminder half when she is away. The rest of the time I stump up the full whack. And I'm self-employed too most of the time.

I think your'll be lucky. Nurseries CERTAINLY don't do it. She needs full pay 52 wks of the year aswell - not just as it suits you - would sharing her with another family be an option ?

circumstances change & she may love term-time only work with half pay, or she may not!

You could discuss the options with her & see how she feels. Seems reasonable to me.

She would need to find another family who want her to work for the precise times that you don't need her. Not likely, I expect, and she must have rent/mortgage to pay?

Well, I'd hate a job where I was only paid half rate half the year. What would I be supposed to live on?

Not to speak of life's essentials like gin and frivolous magazines, Bubble.

I'd have thought a nanny with school age children might be very keen on term time working. Our university nursery had quite a few staff on term time only working, from choice (and quite a few term time only children to match the staffing).

We have this conversation regularly at our nursery. Parents don't want to pay (or want to pay half) when they are away on holiday.

I ask them if they would think of telling a landlord of a rented property that they were not going to pay rent while they were away. Same thing.

Motherinferior, if she is paying for her G&T's and a copy of SHE, what else does the woman want - her mortgage paid

Can't she read her employer's magazines?

Suspect there are a lot of people (me) who would happily employ her for the school holidays - you're not in the North West are you? Suggest you discuss it with her, and see if she would be happy if you could help her find holiday time work.

Actually covering for holidays shouldn't be a problem. Ds will start schhol next sept. What will I do then ? I could hire a school holiday nanny - I am sure lots of other working parents of school children, would atleast consider it an option.

Your circumstances are changing, so you need to consider if the current contract will still apply, or if the job is changing significantly and thus a new contract is needed. If your employee won't agree to the new contract, then you can terminate them and get someone else - the job has changed. You would need to give relevant notice (as agreed in contract) and redundancy pay may apply, as the job itself is no longer existing.

The new contract could be for term time only (depending on your term lengths, that could mean 36 weeks per year) plus holiday entitlement. You could then negotiate with your employee to split payment for this over 12 months. You need not give a retainer, though adding one may help keep your employee happy, but then can affect them getting other work during holiday periods.

You will risk losing your current employee if you make ANY changes to existing contract. It is a risk, which you will have to decide if you are prepared to take. If your nanny won't accept the new deal, then you are looking for a replacement nanny, the nanny is looking for a new job, and the children may like or dislike the new nanny.

Talk with your nanny regarding possible changes in circumstances... see if you can get an indication regarding if the contract was changed, if they would leave.

As a nanny who work's school term time, over the past two years, I have had little if any parent ask me to be a school holiday nanny.

Either I am in the wrong area, or parents don't actually want a nanny for just the holidays - other forms of childcare such as Summer Camps can be cheaper.

In my last job i worked for teachers and my salary reflected my 12 weeks holiday but i just got a lower (by about £30) salary all year round.

The retainer thing might work well with a nanny who has children but you may have to be prepared to loose your current nanny. Nannies don't earn enough really not to work full time with a full time salary unless maybe she has a partner or lives with parents and the loss of money may be ok.

I also had trouble finding school holiday work to cover my time off and as i thought it would be easy.

This is interesting. It has alerted me to the fact that when DS goes to school full time, I'm going to need a non-term time only nanny. Perhaps I'll have to find someone who wants term-time only to share with. It is a few years away, but something I hadn't yet thought about.

Eleusis - least complicated option is a live-in au pair that does drop-offs and pick-ups in term time (eg 5 hours a day) and in holidays and plan on enrolling your children in day camp / holiday activities. If the au pair is willing, you can ask her whether she'll do all day during part of the holidays and pay her extra accordingly.

Yes, that's an option too, I suppose. I have another 2 1/2 years to sort it out. So, I don't need to to worry about it just yet.

Lucky you. We have it for our stepsons and it's a big problem - well, actually big problem is that their mother thinks she'd like to carry on with full-time nanny (paid for by my partner ) but the boys are 10 and 12 and way beyond being looked after by a nanny, who sits around all day knitting while boys are taken care of by other means.

Anyway, after zillions of conversations, the au pair option seems the best - especially since au pairs who come to learn the language have language school during the children's school term time but also have school holidays and are glad of the extra childcare work for part of that. It's the win-win solution financially.

does she work? Is the nanny live-in?

She works 4 days a week, full-time live in nanny.

Is 4 six hour days or 4 12 hour days? It does sound like it might be a bit OTT to have a live-in nanny. Oh God, come to think of it, no way will I still be paying for a live-in nanny when mone are 10-12. I think I'll drop to au pair when they are 5 and 7 an both in school full time.

Four normal French days ie 9.30 am to 8 pm. My partner takes the younger son to school every day (picks him up from his mother's if he is not staying with us), the elder son takes himself to and from school now he's in secondary. So the nanny starts work at around 11.30 am, does housework, ironing and shopping, and then picks up the younger son from school at four pm and looks after the boys until their mother gets home on Monday, Thursday and every other Friday. On Tuesday they come to us and on Wednesday in theory their mother is at home from work.

As you can probably see, we think that the full-time live-in nanny is a bit superfluous to requirements...

Just wanted to "float" the idea...I am not changing her role thought it might be work suggesting ..it will be her decision whether it will work for her or not...she has a boy friend a 5hr drive away who ahe can only see on occasional weekends...so this might work for her

To try and make it seem better you can work out what you pay her weekly and then minus the holiday weeks and add on half pay . I know someone will explain it better than me . But it works out she gets the same pay every week .