Nanny Holidays -- feel I have been used??

[knakered]

We take quite a lot of holidays (6-8 weeks/year) but feel that my nanny waits until these are scheduled to then announce hers - which never over-lap - so she ends up with 10-12 weeks/year and I have to pay for cover in the weeks she is off. How do we get around this ?

Ask for her holiday dates by a certain date?

Some employers expect people to have half of their entitlement booked by the first 3 months of the year.

Sorry hit send too quickly!

Usually nannies choose half of their dates, with you specifying the other half. So for a 4 week entitlement, you choose 2 weeks, she chooses the other.

Say her leave year runs from 1st April-31st March. I would give her a holiday form in March ( or before if you prefer) and ask for half of her entitlement to be filled in within a certain timescale, to enable you to plan your holidays

We chose 2 weeks and our nanny chooses 2 weeks. If we go away for more than 2 weeks then her luck is in but otherwise it works out pretty well and means we only have 2 weeks without a nanny when we are home.

And the other thing you can do is ask her to come in for a day or so when you are away - sort out children's clothes/toys etc, do loads of cooking and fill up the freezer with foos for the children.

Agree with ShinyDyson - we chose half nanny's holiday and she had to book the other half (in theory with enough notice to let us arrange alternative childcare if we couldn't cover it ourselves).

knakered your nanny doesn't get to announce her holiday dates to you, she can ask for certain dates but as long as she gets the required time off, you could specify exactly when you want her to take it. As shiny and beaulocks have said, normal practice with nannies is to choose half each or similar, but actually there's nothing stopping you dictating the whole of her holiday entitlement if you want to.

I've always split my holiday 50/50 with employers, and been paid for any extra over that BUT I've usually been asked to book large blocks of holiday 6 months in advance so the parents can plan. Another contract I had specified that my holiday was restricted to school holidays which I was happy enough with then but might be a little about now especially as if I wanted to go abroad it's a lot cheaper out of season.

There's a lot your nanny can do around the house while you're away as BeauLocks says.

Ive usually had 50/50 in my contract, current job mum is a teacher so I pick all my own BUT must be in holidays. your nanny is taking the piss! Id always check with employer before booking something, not in this job obv as I know dates, but in all others.

Agree with flowwery beanbag. Your nanny should request holidays, and not announce them.

My nanny contract is written each year on a 12 month fixed term contract and the holidays are noted in the contract. WE sit down and I say right, are there any dates you want? She tells me and in most case I schedule mine around hers. Although since DD has started school I have started asking the nanny to take her hols when the school is on hols. If it's a day or two here or there I don't mind doing the school run. But I'm not going to take a two week holiday to do a school run while nanny goes off on a more economical holiday in the sun.

My current nanny asked for two weeks off in March, I said she had to take it in April when DD is on two weeks of hols. And so she bumped up her resignation to March. Must be nice to be able to put hols before income. She was leaving in June anyway so it doesn't really matter. There are no hard feeling at all. But, I did think hmmm... that'll teach me to decline holiday.

I am currently looking for my first nanny. My plan is to put in the contract that we will try wherever possible to accommodate nanny's holiday requests, but reserve the right to specify when holiday is to be taken where necessary.

I fully anticipate that we will be able to accommodate her for at least some of it, but I need that option in there.

I do the same as most - specify that nanny can choose 2 weeks and we choose the rest. But, its true that you don't have to do that - you coudl insist that you choose all the dates (but at your peril!)
My situation is complicated by the fact that its a nanny share, and also by the fact that my nanny tends not to ask for any holidays - so I worked out that in the year she has worked for us, she hasn't had a proper holiday (from both jobs) at all! so i have ended up suggesting she takes leave from us when her other family is on holiday - in effect forcing her to have holiday she probably wouldn't have requested...and taking all the burden of nanny leave myself while the other family does nothing...I'm just too nice

I don't think you neeed to write that option. Unless the contact explicitly says she can choose the holidays without your approval, then she can't.

Maybe something like "Holidays requests should be made at leat 6 weeks prior to commencement for employers approval" would protect you.

But, personally, I would write them into the contract.

I have a new nanny starting March 1st, and we have already agreed the hols through SEptember, which is when she is leaving.

Well yes I realise I don't technically need to put anything, but as most nannies seem to have it in their contract that they can choose half, I would like to put something in saying we will accommodate where possible but will specify if not.

As a nanny I am a little disappointed at tone suggested in some posts when talking about your nannies. They take care of your children which, to you, should be the most imporant job in the world and I think they deserve to be treated with respect and be a valued addition to your family, not someone out to make your life difficult and to get what they can.

Legally, employees should request holidays in advance, giving at least twice the notice as the amount of holiday. Eg. 1 week of holiday should be requested at least 2 weeks before the holiday dates.

It is correct that an employer can dictate when an employee takes their holidays however that arrangement would not suit the majority of people. As a previous poster pointed out families would not be happy to have the nanny decide all of their holidays so you should not expect that to be ok for the nanny either. Nannies have partners and families too and a 50-50 split on choosing holidays seems to be most fair.

An nanny is an employee, not a God.

There is respect and there is slavish aquiescence of outlandish requests and piss taking, and respect is a two way street.

Knakered, I think you should rewrite the contract, to the effect that the nanny will choose 10 days holiday and you will guarantee her 10 days at a time of your choosing. You would not be unreasonable to ask her to come into the house to do nursery duties whilst you are on holiday (subject to her getting 20 days holiday a year.) Not every holiday, but maybe a day or two. Ask her to do things like sewing name tapes on and spring cleaning bedrooms.

She's getting an awful lot of holiday - I'm assuming her pay doesn't reflect that.

Here information about taking holiday entitlements, what notice must be given etc

It does sound like she is taking the pee.

I think half and half is fair tbh. If you choose to take extra on top of the 4 weeks, that is up to you but you shouldn't have to get cover for more than 2 weeks a year imo. (Ex-nanny)

Flowerybeanbag, those look like suggestions, especially since it also states that employer can choose all of the holidays.

I wouldn't appreciate it if my nanny had a habit of taking a week off with only two weeks notice. I'm afraid the answer would be "no" if that became a habit because it hardly gives me time to sort out my own work/childcare/holiday arrangements.

I am generally happy to accommodate her requests, but I expect a lot more notice than that.

ROFL!!

No, if it says 'must' on a goverment website, it's not a 'suggestion'! But I'm not sure how it would affect you negatively? An employee must give notice of at least 2x the length of their holiday, and if an employer wishes to refuse it, they must give at least 1x the length of the holiday to do so. So if your nanny wants to take a 2 week holiday, she must give 4 weeks' notice. If you want to refuse her request, you must give at least 2 weeks' notice of that, in other words you can't say no a couple of days before.

Actually, I don't have to do any such thing. We agree the holidays and write them into the 12 month fixed term contract with one month of her begining the job. If she wants to shift them and I am able to accommodate I'm usually more than happy to do so. If she announced she wanted a week off in two weeks, I'd have to check with work, check with DH to check with his work, follow up with DH to check with his work, follow up with DH again... and oh yeah try and book a holiday for me, oh and let's not forget checking the school calendar... Sorry, there is no such right in my world. And my world is perfectly legal.

So if you want to crying your legal right, then perhaps I'll remind you of our legal contract.

Whatever!

Wow, I haven't considered that word as a point scoring response since i was oh... 13 or so.

It's all in the attitude, flowerybeanbag. If you go to your employer (no matter what your line of work) and say you owe me this and that and here is my legal entitlement blah blah blah, you find them much less accommodating then if you sit down and say please my friend is getting married and I really want to be there, but it means 3 weeks in Australia on these dates. The latter I would bend over backwards to accommodate. The former I would say sorry but those dates don't work for me on account of the shourt motice.