Need some help in managing nanny/housekeeper. Any advice?

[AlwaysNeedingHelp]

I'm returning to work so we have fairly recently employed a nanny/housekeeper 2 days per week. She has set hours when she looks after the children and set hours when she cleans the house. She does the same role for another family 3 days per week.

She is absolutely lovely, the kids like her, she seems trustworthy and responsible. She is just not a great cleaner! We really wanted someone who could help in the house (put washing away, tidy toys, change beds, pack nursery stuff, etc) rather than simply cleaners. She's quite good at that stuff, but she isn't good at the actual basic cleaning. Yesterday I had to wash the floors and clean the bathrooms after she'd left. Everywhere was sort of vaguely cleaner than when I left but nowhere near clean enough. She was allocated 6 hours of cleaning (Thursday is her main 'cleaning' day) which should be enough!

Anyway, how do I go about trying to get her to improve her cleaning? I have a list we wrote together for her to follow for each room but she clearly isn't following it.

I am a very shy, non-confrontational person and for good reason I don't have management responsibilities at work (of people, at least) I'm just not sure how to approach things. Do you have any good tips or phrases? I don't want to seem critical. Even though I am

I'm really keen to keep her, she's lovely and it's taken us ages to find someone suitable as we live in a small town so there are very few candidates!

Any advice from more seasoned nanny/housekeeper employers?

There's really no substitute for telling her. Calmly and directly. What employees want from a manager is clear and prompt feedback they can act on. "Nanny, the floor didn't really seem very clean to me yesterday. Was there some problem with getting everything done?" Then listen. Then say "I'd really like it cleaner than that. Do you think you can do that for next time?"

Nannies arent cleaners and these confusing roles never work.
Also consider her nanny insurance will not cover you if she damages anything when cleaning. Cleaners have special insurance for this.
As last poster said calm, polite feedback. But you may find she doesnt improve. Employ a cleaner. Limit her to nanny duties, cleaning childrens rooms, childrens laundrey, batch cooking, weekly shop.
Sorry not what you want to hear but rare for a nanny to be good with children and good with the house. Yes some are but rare.

Are the 6 hours of allocated cleaning time child free?

Literally do not understand why so many people think that nannies and cleaners are interchangeable roles??? I mean granted she accepted the role, but I for sure could not clean to he standard of a professional cleaner and have no desire to. I went to university, and consider a nanny's role as one to nurture children and aid in their educational development.

So sorry, my only advice is to hire a separate cleaner 🤷🏽‍♀️

Literally do not understand why so many people think that nannies and cleaners are interchangeable roles

Nanny/housekeeper is a thing and it seems like the OP hired specifically for the role and is clear about what role in what hours.

It’s hard to find a good hk/nanny

Cleaners arent always great with kids and Nannies are not cleaners

Did you get ref from her 3day job

What age are your children

And are the 6hrs childfree - does sound a long /enough time to clean

What size is your house

Hi

Thanks for the replies. Just to clarify, we had a cleaning company when we first employed her for the nanny role. In discussing the role and what would be expected (ie child-related tasks) we discussed more generally that we had cleaners but they were not really working for us. She mentioned that her 3-day job is (roughly) 2 days childcare, one day cleaning and she could do something similar for us if we wanted. We thought our prayers had been answered! She is well-qualified for the nanny role and is great at it.

Kids are small (3 and 1) but yes, the 6 hours yesterday was allocated 'cleaning' time while the children were not there. She has allocated childcare time and allocated nanny time. We would not expect her to try to do both at the same time, that is impossible!

The things that were not done were absolutely basic tasks - floors not hoovered or mopped, beds not changed, bins not emptied. There was a cup of milk in my kids bedroom that I found last night. It had been spilled and there was milk on the floor, she hadn't picked it up or cleaned up the milk so I did that last night (and then hoovered as that hadn't been done). It's not that we have crazily high standards, it's not even basics that were done properly.

I don't really want to go back to having a cleaning company, for a start it's hard to get one around here, but secondly we found it just didn't suit us. They expected to come into a very tidy house and just clean - that's just never going to suit us! For reference, the cleaners used to come 4 hours a week.

She is back on Wednesday next week so I'll have a think about how best to tackle it, being clear about what's expected.

Thanks all.

Would she take well to having a checklist for each room? Some people like lists others do not.

Go for a checklist approach and offer to do it with her the first go round so if she has any questions you're right there and she sees the standard you expect. It's worked well for us in the past.

To me it sounds like you are asking for a lot in 6 hours, considering professional cleaners took 4 hours not including tidying. I would expect a non professional cleaner to be a lot slower (and less thorough) and you are adding the tidying on top.

It is totally normal for cleaners to clean not tidy, and things do need to be tidy for them to do their jobs properly. I do not know of any professional cleaners who tidy up after people before cleaning. I am not sure how having things tidy is not practical for you, surely it's just a case of things being put away as they are used, which even the most busy families can manage.

Could the solution be for your nanny/HC, to tidy/cook/iron etc in preparation for the professional cleaners?

I think most people aren't familiar with a housekeeper/nanny role but it does very much exist and if it's specifically recruited for it's perfectly fine. They do generally tidy and clean. Obviously the size of the house makes a difference in whether or not the 6 hours is enough.

6 hours is plenty of time to mop floors and give house a good clean assuming it wasn't a midden when she arrived. If she hasnt done it you need to tell her. It sounds like she sees her role as a tidying rather than cleaning.

What other possible solution is there other than just telling her? Or getting your husband to tell her? I mean if she's not mopping up spilt milk on a bedroom floor? Sounds like she's really lazy.

Ok she doesnt sound like she is doing basic nanny tasks if not bothering to remove a bottle/cup of milk from the childrens bedrooms. Doesnt sound like she is ever going to be a good cleaner. Reduce her hours and get a cleaner.

6 hours straight cleaning, even with a mid-way break, is both gruelling and dull af, so she may well have lost momentum. I'd say something along the lines of, I noticed that a few things weren't really cleaned properly (give examples, milk, bathroom etc) - is everything ok, would you rather do 2 X 3 hour stints, as I know 6 hours in one go is pretty tough. In approaching it along these lines, it softens the blow of the criticism (which is the bit you're struggling with).