Nanny ill 3 times in 5 months.

[Christmaspanic24]

We have employed our nanny for 5 months for 3 days a week. In that time she has been ill 3 times. This has been manageable because I'm not currently working, but I go back to work next week. My job isn't flexible and a lot of people count on me to be there, it's quite a disruption /difficulty if I have to be off work. We don't have any family nearby that can provide emergency childcare. I'm wondering what others do in this situation, how do you cover the nanny if she goes off sick? Thanks

There are agencies that have "emergency " nannies

I know it's not really answering the question, but 3 absences in 5 months is really high. Have you raised your concerns with her about the level of illness? Do you think she was genuinely ill on each occasion?

beryl we haven't raised concerns, it's our first time employing a nanny and to be honest not sure what the norms are. This last time our kids have been ill with similar so I think it's genuine. The first and 2nd times are really hard to judge. Indont know how you would know? It does make me worry as we did have another incident that had shaken our trust a little in reliability. I just feel nervous now I'm going back to work but don't know what the alternative would be.

A good nanny with eg a bad cold will phone and ask whether you want them to come in in that state. You can then choose. After all a mother with a bad cold would look after a child.
If the illness is something like norovirus then you probably want to keep them away from your DC.
There are lots of nanny agencies which provide emergency nannies - in the cities and at a cost. And of course a new face can be difficult for a child.
We had a nanny and a separate cleaner. Cleaner babysat for a lot of our friends and was happy to juggle other jobs and come in and baby sit for us in an emergency.
It is also worth while cultivating relationships with other families in a similar situation so you can drop your DC off with them in a crisis, and they theirs with you.
I would wonder about any employee who had had three lots of sick leave in five months. Is it self certified? Does it happen before/after weekends? Do you have a return to work discussion after each episode?

I think you need to discuss your concerns with her. Say exactly what you have written here - that 3 absences in 5 months seems really high, and that you need to be certain that you can rely on her, because others are relying on you in the workplace. If it is a continuing issue then you may have to find someone more reliable.

I agree with doing return to work discussions with her each time she is off.

Do you pay full pay for the absences, or SSP?

I think that's good advice. We have never had a return to work interview - it's quite a learning curve actually employing someone and more stress than I realised. We have paid her full pay for absences before but her contract states statutory with full pay on our discretion. She has a lovely manner with the children, but is relatively young and me and DH fear her reliability. There are other issues, but I was willing to ignore these if reliability wasn't an issue.

What are the other issues?

Hmm - people have been different attitudes to illness. An old nanny was very reliable for the first two years we employed her but finally took sick leave for minor illnesses ( she was planning to leave and no longer cared). Our current nanny pitched up every day during pregnancy even with morning sickness. I told her to baton down the hatches, put the tv on and do no housework. I was hugely relieved that she didn’t call in sick.

What other issues?

I would be wary if your instinct is telling you something especially when it comes to a nanny.

The other issues are small. She can't cook so I feel I have to prepare / batch cook all meals. She takes the kids to toddler groups, but I haven't really seen her plan any activities with the children. She sometimes decides to do odd things to be 'helpful'. She once went through our letter rack, essentially all our post and lots of personal documents, as she said it looked like it needed tidying . However she is warm and kind and she has a lovely manner with the children, which I think is more important than cooking etc. The reliability issue is more important as it could affect my and DH jobs as in turn it will make us unreliable.

Depends on the issues

I guess if I think about it, one of the reasons we perhaps feel a bit disappointed in hiring her, is that she really sold herself in the interview as being super hard working. Claimed that she never stopped, loved housework, could cook etc and this isn't really our experience of her.

Time for a sit down chat before next week. You have to be confident in her abilities so need to iron out any issues before you go back to work. It will benefit all of you, I think.

3 absences in 6 months is a trigger for many organisations to start formal proceedings. What were the absences for?

I think you need to be a bit tougher on the can't cook thing. If you can read, you can cook. Just read the packet, look up a recipe on the internet. She needs to live up to her promises.

Did you take up references for her? Did they mention anything like this?

Unfortunately nannies can be more unreliable as they're just 1 person. If you need reliability you need a nursery not a nanny.

The good nannies offer to come in when ill, if it's nothing too bad. The good employers let them have a tv day when coming in when ill.

1st absence was a stomach bug, 2nd head cold & sore throat, 3rd a stomach bug. She's also had compassionate leave because of an ill pet. One of the issues I mentioned earlier was she attempted to pull out of an extra shift very last minute, with a very dubious reason of a medical appointment that she didnt previously know about. When i said we needed to have a sit down and talk about things the dubious medical appointment was suddenly rearranged and she could now do the agreed hours. I guess my trust in her has never recovered.

Compassionate leave for an ill pet? She's playing you like a bloody fiddle there. And you're allowing it btsoi.

We did sit down after the incident and although I obviously couldn't call her untruthful. I pointed out that reliability and trust were extremely important considering her very responsible position. I also encouraged her to raise any concerns she had or if she had problems with the job. She just said she loved the job and the kids and there were no problems

Google emergency nannies in your area. They often send the same person.

Regarding your nanny, do you pay for sick leave? What does your contract say? I do but it's not in the contract, so it's goodwill. If it was abused, I would stop payments.

worried we have provided full pay up until now for all sick leave. Our contract states statutory but we can pay full pay at our discretion. She took 1.5 days off for the ill pet and she agreed to come in on a different extra day and she didn't get paid for the half day, if that makes sense.

What were her references like? Did her previous employers flag up any issues?

What were her references like?

She has only worked for one family before us. They gave her a very good reference. Admittedly it didn't mention cooking, now I think about it . However, she also worked for them on a very different basis. She considered herself self employed and therefore they paid her gross. She was essentially on a zero hours arrangement where they would have her work when they needed her and then paid her nothing when they didn't. For example, I don't think they employed her during school holidays, as the mum was at home. She had no sick pay or holiday pay etc. We have put her on a standard contract with all the usual benefits of being employed.

It sounds like the ad-hoc hours she worked for her previous employer suits her better than the hours you require her to do.