What am I doing wrong... or do we just have too many kids?

[seafoodudon]

We've just had two au pairs lasting about six months each, and both were pretty successful (neither perfect, obvs, but both really solid and the childcare got done safely and effectively). The second of these au pairs left suddenly (nothing to do with the job or us), and we're really struggling to replace her.

We're using au pair world as that worked well for the last two (and previously we'd used an agency but I totally balked when I found that for the £600 fee they had done nothing more than read her application form and speak to her on the phone - that au pair was good, but only by luck!).

However, for about 10 days now I've been checking in twice a day, sending messages to girls (I'm probably pushing 100 messages now), and not really getting anywhere with anyone. Most of my messages go ignored. We got as far as a phone interview with one who sounded lovely, but then it transpired that there was a really messy backstory about why she wanted to come to the UK and we decided we couldn't risk being involved (it was illegal...).

I think our profile is very 'honest' as we have four young kids and our house is busy BUT we're clear that the max hours per week will be 30 (which is in line with what APW says is 'normal') and we're offering £100 pocket money plus a weekly bus pass worth £15pw. Whilst APW suggest £80-£85. The room is honestly lovely (big converted attic space with exclusive use of new bathroom) - I wish I could go live up there. We never expect work at the weekend, and we can normally give the au pair at least one other day off in the week.

We live in Manchester - rather than London - which I genuinely think is a super city, and we live close to the city centre (15 mins on the bus) - but it seems so many au pairs just want to be in London.

Sorry - not quite sure what I'm looking for here - top tips perhaps?!

4 kids is ALOT for a young person to deal with for 30hrs a week imo.

I hate the ideas of Au Pairs, I get that they're not fully qualified childcare professionals but to be paid just £100 allowance a week (all right, I know room and board is included) for that amount of responsibility makes me think of slave labour tbh.

I know you think 4 kids is not as much work but those hours must be very very busy when she has them all. Rather than one eating tea and one playing, you have one eating tea, one playing, one wanting their bottom wiped and one wanting help in the shower. Rotate so the eating tea one wants help in the shower etc. etc. and you never get a second to sit down.
I only have two but one has ADHD and never lets up for a minute and I wouldn't wish him on an au pair TBF.

I am in London and found that when I hired last year, £80/85/week wasn't enough. We offered £100 for 2 kids & 25 hours.

I think 4 children might be putting the au pairs off. Can you afford to increase the money?

There are definitely less and less au pairs looking as we get closer to Brexit which doesn't help.

If you both work from home a lot, couldn’t you get involved in getting the kids up in the morning / to school and then getting them to bed at night? It’s a lot of work as it currently stands? I feel exhausted just thinking about it with 4 kids. I have two DDs within your age group. If I had to add another two in the mix, I would definitely struggle.

I can't give full detail for obvious reason but with my history of work as a police detective in child protection, in relation to one of the biggest investigations I ever worked on, I wouldn't use aupair world if they were the only aupair agency on the planet.

Aupair world is not an aupair agency.

Also

"I think the £600 on an agency went on more than a read of an application form and a phone call. Presumably the agency spent years formulating the application form and interview questions, building up a reputation that made the au pairs feel they were signing up for something safe, respectable and legit. They do a screening process so they don't get casual applicants with no intention of doing the job. And they presumably advertise somewhere more effective than APW.

Pay the money."

I've worked in recruitment/HR for years . Agencies of any kind can be set up in days 🤣🤣🤣

@DropOffArtiste I apologise then. The one I was talking about was an international web based aupair agency of the same name with subsidiaries in lots of countries

APW is like an advertising board. To my knowledge, they don't purport to be an agency and don't undertake reference checks of any description on either APs or host families, so caution is advised.

apologies if I've missed it but how old are your DC?

I think 4 kids, especially if there are younger ones in the mix, is a lot for someone probably only just out of their teens, if not still a teenager, to take on.

As PPs have said, the terms & conditions you are offering an au pair just aren’t competitive.

also since you dropped nursery hours you have some money to spend on the au pair
why are you trying to save it instead of paying it?

In France we've had au pairs. Legal rules apply here. 20 hours a week max. No under 2s in sole care. And paid French lessons (if I remember correctly it was 12 hours a week). The rest of the rules are what you'd expect.

All in all including taxes it cost about 11k a year.

We didn't pay travel to/from country. Is that an obligation? Cos it's a huge extra if not.

And they had an apartment separate from the house so when they were off they were really off. Sole use of a car. We have 4 kids and we had an au pair couple. All kids 7+.

I've worked in recruitment/HR for years . Agencies of any kind can be set up in days 🤣🤣🤣

Right. But she's had two good aupairs from them. I was highlighting the difference.

I worked with/for educational agencies for years myself. Most of them are pretty thorough and depend on their reputation. No 'crying with laughter emoji' here.

It would be interesting to know how many of the people who are saying it’s ‘slave labour’ have £100 pw, every week to spend on themselves?

I think your asking way too much. My friends with au pairs pay them the same as you, but have fewer kids who are in school or nursery most ignored the time. They are expected to work fewer hours and they have time off in the week for language lessons. Their duties are mostly school runs, kids washing and after school care and dinner. It would be rare that the au pairs would be expected to do bedtime.

I think your comment about expecting them to always be working in that 30 hours, is telling. My friends treat their au pairs like friends of the family eg if the kids are out with the grandparents for the day then the au pair gets to do what they like- they aren’t handed a list of extra duties.

You've got quite a big ask there - do you need the full 30 hours? I'd say you ether need to cut the hours or up the pay. 4 kids for 30 hours a week is a bit above and beyond. I think au pair world's views in both hours and pay are very out of date. And yes, there has been a huge decline in candidates since Brexit. Don't forget counties like US and South Africa, lots of young people there with a British parent / passport who are keen to come and check the place out.

Wow, lot of replies accusing me of being a modern day slave keeper!

Tbh I think that all au pairs are underpaid. One of my cousins uses au pairs and they have set days that they always will be free and they are allowed to do babysitting work or other jobs elsewhere in that time. Some like making more money so they can spend it travelling their last few months.

My gut feeling is you need to offer more £££ to counter the fact you have 4 DC which I suspect is the real reason you aren't getting any replies. How much would a nanny cost for the same hours?

Gosh, a big range of views. Many thanks to those of you with constructive criticisms. We've raised the money offered to £110, included that we'll pay for a mobile phone, and will think whether we can lower the hours - though as we've lost the day at nursery (at the request of the last au pair), this will require me to reduce my work time/work at night/weekends. We'll also talk about whether we can increase the money offered. Perhaps we could offer 'rising to £150 after three months' or something?

Not sure why people are accusing me of making an au pair do lots of housework. We don't expect our au pair to do any housework or laundry. We only expect them to organise the kids into tidying up things they've been using so we don't then have to spend the whole of the evening tidying up after them.

Rather shaken by the person who asked why I bothered to have 4 kids if I was going to dump them in childcare. I thought that Mumsnet was full of working mums. Or perhaps it's okay to be a working mum but only if you have one or two kids...

I’m very familiar with au pairs and how it works. We had five across four years in Australia and NZ... but I was one of the five kids our au pairs had to manage. I stand by my earlier comment that the OP is underpaying. In short, it’s supply and demand and as many posters have pointed out, there’s a big demand but little supply so to differentiate themselves the OP will need to compete on benefits and pay because with four kids, they won’t be an attractive choice to any au pair

You will have a stampede of offers of help if your application is attractive:

These are proven:

Offer language lessons/driving lessons
Offer for a couple ( you could pay them slightly less)
Split the role for 2 au pairs
Pay much more

OP remember - the thread has gone onto trending so lots of people who have absolutely no experience or even met an au pair before have posted. So you need to disregard at least half the posts.

£110 is fine. You can't raise to £150 unless you register as an employer and file monthly returns to HMRC. I wouldn't go anywhere near phones either. You'd be better to offer to pay towards a language class (I haven't had an au pair who needed lessons for a while, but I usually bring the cost down to about £10/week).

If you reduce the wording on your Au pair world profile, reduce the stay time to 6months+ and big up the floor to yourself and also "free local transport card" you'll be fine. I would also mention Manchester as being 3rd largest city in England/bars/nightclubs/close to several language
We also buy our au pairs a young person's railcard which gives them discounted travel on all the trains and I would consider giving them one of those as well.

£110 is fine. You can't raise to £150 unless you register as an employer and file monthly returns to HMRC. I wouldn't go anywhere near phones either. You'd be better to offer to pay towards a language class (I haven't had an au pair who needed lessons for a while, but I usually bring the cost down to about £10/week)

I am confused by this, what is that statement based on?

‘Please note that, for 2017-18, UK income tax is payable on income over £11,500 per annum.
Families are responsible for ensuring income tax and National Insurance contributions are paid, if applicable.
Please check with the HMRC for further information on income tax and National Insurance thresholds (website www.gov.uk/government/’