nanny employers who had another child...

[woodstock3]

..how did you manage the maternity leave? we have a brilliant nanny four days a week for ds who is just over 1. are vaguely ttc a second. i would go back to work after any second baby and would love to keep same nanny throughout.
but my work's mat leave arrangements are not generous and i just couldn't afford to pay her to work fulltime through my mat leave (also, i'd feel funny employing someone to look after my dcs while im there, knackered or not).
ideally i'd like to find a temporary job for her while im on mat leave, maybe even covering for a pregnant nanny's mat leave or something, but guess it would be hard to find the right job at the right time and would be fearful of her preferring the new family and leaving!
what did you do in the same circs? is there a neat way round this that i haven't thought of?

Im a nanny and I've a funny feeling that if you want your nanny to stay, lots of the other nannies on here will say that you'll need to pay her ft wages throughout.

Personally I'd really appreciate having a boss who was considering / looking into finding alternative work for me.

Legally where would you stand? Could you not pay your nanny her contracted wages as a result of you being on ml?

I am in no way being judgemental but saw your post and you had no replies so thought I'd try and cover a bit of everything that might come up!

Hope that helps

thankyou - im not suggesting she somehow should stay on without being paid!!! she needs to work ft (well the four days she does now). i just imagine other people have been in this situation and wonder how they managed it to everybody's benefit.

i am in exactly the same position- tried really hard to find a matching position for my nanny so that i could keep her part time while on mat leave. initially she agreed to it, but has recently told me she's changed her mind and wants a full time job. i am not sure whether she was just fed up with us or what- things have been quite weird lately which may just be our own personal circumstances.

you may be luckier- try www.thenannysharers.co.uk, and talk to all your friends/acquaintances, something may come up.

Realistically....you either need to keep her on full time or let her go. In an ideal world it would be great to find a temp position for her but it would be very very hard to find something suitable and will probably end up creating tense and unsettling ripples through your household as you try desperatly to work it out!!

I sometimes think when adding a new baby to the equation it can be positive to add a new nanny..in my past experience nannies can feel a bit hard done by when the new baby comes along as they have over double the work often for only a small payrise..where as if you take on a new nanny the 2 children are what she takes on and what is the norm!

The neat solution is to give her notice and then re-recruit. Sorry I know thats prob not the right answer!

LS

You should explain the situation to her, that your work materinity pay is not good and you cannot afford her wage whilst off, give her notice and say that when you return to work after ml you will contact her to see if she is available. She may be able to do temp work through an agency during this time. She may not have found another job. She may have found another job but would prefer to give them notice and come back to work for you. Or you may be unlucky and have to start the recruiting process over again.

How would you feel if your boss said to you....

"for the next 6 / 9 / 12 months you will be working in a different office with different people with different rules weather you like it or not?"

In all honestly If you really want to keep your nanny then sorry but you need to keep paying her her normal wage throughout your maternity leave.

I agree its worth discussing in with your nanny, and putting feelers out at toddler groups etc just to see if there is anyone who needs maternity leave cover for their nanny (not necessaerily likely and my nanny friend only had 6 weeks maternity leave herself)

Do you have any NCT friends etc? maybe you could share her an have 2 days a week each? Again you would REALLY need to discuss this with your nanny and be very prepared for her to say "sorry, no thanks" and leave....

Did you use an agency to find her.... think about they £1000+ cost of agency fees to find another nanny in a few months time, and all the interview processes, stress etc....

Good Luck!

nannyl's idea of sharing her with a friend, 2 days each, sounds good if your nanny would be up for it. She's right when she says that discussion is the key. Rather than go to her with 'this is what I've sorted' you need to keep her informed and check that she is ok with any ideas.

I personally think it is very cheeky to ask your nanny to leave while you are on ML

How would you like your boss at work to say, Im pregnant, cant afford you for 4/6mths so go away, find another job, but then we want you back as normal in 6mths time

i have had 2 friends in that position, and they did go and find temp jobs and then went back, but I wouldnt do that.

I have has 3 bosses on ML, and in all 3 jobs I have stayed while mb on ml, I have my lovely mb on ml at the moment - I get paid the same, but do slightly shorter hours.

If ANY of them had suggested what you are saying, I would had left for good - we work to pay bills/mortgages etc and cant afford to be out of work for 6mths, and trying to find a temp job that will fit in is very hard

If your nanny is that fab, then please try to find a way of keeping her on, even if maybe as a share with a friend

you also need to think of your ds, who is prob very attached to your nanny, how would he feel, if you got rid of her, had a new baby and then brought in a new nanny - so 3 chnages in his little life that would affect him

you say you would feel funny having someone there while you are not working - trust me, having another pair of hands about to give you time to catch upon your sleep is great, or to take all the children out and give you a break

How many nannies really believe that their employers are being paid such fantastic benefits that they can easily (or relatively easily) afford to keep them on during maternity leave? For most people paying a nanny's wages is a strain when they are working full time, let alone on partial pay on maternity leave. Working for a family is not the same as working for a large company, so the comparisons here re: what would you say if your boss said, etc. are not comparable.

"cheeky" to ask your employee to leave when you are on ML? I think that's a bit much - it's an unfortunate reality for most people. And of course it's inconvenient to have to recruit a new person, but there we are, in the real world.

imananny- sounds like you have very wealthy employers, so consider yourself lucky (can't believe you do shorter hours for same pay! can i work for them too please???) and please take a second to consider the motivation and circumstances of op (which are also mine, hence i take it quite personally!).

SMP in the UK is 90% of full salary for 6 weeks, and about £110 thereafter. i would guess your weekly salary is a lot more than that? not many people can afford to keep a nanny while their salaries are so drastically reduced. and most nanny contracts have notice periods of one month or thereabouts, so from a purely contractual point of view there is nothing wrong in telling your nanny with pletny of notice that you will no longer be able to afford her services.

it is also absolutely ok to talk about the fact that you would love to keep her on for the long term and try and find a mutually satisfactory way to achieve that. it is absolutely not the same thing as telling her "Im pregnant, cant afford you for 4/6mths so go away, find another job, but then we want you back as normal in 6mths time". in fact, i would think it is quite flattering to know that your employer values you so much.

as i said- i am very happy for you that you find yourself in this great position (No doubt you are a brilliant nanny and fully deserve it) but please try and be considerate of others when offering advice!

Perhaps you should start looking for it to become a nannyshare now (with all that entails)or as you're not pregnant yet start saving very very hard now to cover your M/L and accept you may only have a very short M/L.

Sadly 11 years ago when I had dd1 the harsh reality for us to claim income support was that I had to be actively seeking work from when she was 6 weeks old, so I started back at work when she was 9 weeks old!!!!!

agree i do work for weathly employers,but my 2 other famillies werent that rich, but wanted to keep me on, and saved to make it possible when they were working,knowing that they would need to pay me while she was on ml

my friend whose mb told her to bugger off for 6mths but then wanted her back when she went back to work - that was the senerio i was using - prehaps wrongly in this case

i do reliese that a familys income is severely halfed/reduced when mb on ml, and yes guess giving months notice as stated in contract is right

hopefully you will both find solutions

I know too that if when my boss has another baby i will stay on for the same money and less hours....
(actually most if not all of my nanny friends do less hours while their bosses are on M-L)

when you are at home all the time you dont always need your nanny 12 hours a day unlike when you are working!

A very good nanny friend of mine has very recently left her job as her MB is on maternity leave and 'didnt want her around' all the time, and 'they couldnt afford her'

Her boss still thinks that in 6 months time their old (absolutely amzingly wonderful) nanny return.... how wrong she is.... NO WAY will she return...

and TBH i cant imagine her old boss will even find another nanny as wonderful as my friend.... (who bent over backwards to help them out so much, so much more than many otehr nannies i know would!)

In 6 months time im SURE she will regret letting her nanny go.

As for saying they couldnt afford to keep her....
maybe not, but in the previouse few weeks before she left they spent seriouse amounts of £ on loads of new, but not really necessary stuff (I agree its their money, they have earnt it and they are free to do exactly what they like with it , none of nannies or anyone elses buisness) but the point is they spent the equivelent of 2 - 3 years of their nannies salary, so i dont see how they can be that hard up

Oh and the nanny was on the highest salary i know of around here too!

It is actually not remotely the nanny's business what her employers spend their money on and to be honest if I knew that my nanny were speculating with friends regarding my spending habits relative to her wages or my plans for childcare I would regard it as an invasion of privacy. Call me funny like that. You say you understand that NannyL but somehow I think you're heart's not really in it.

Most people cannot afford to pay a nanny and be on maternity leave, end of. Most people will regret having to let a good nanny go, I agree.

I agree that your friend's employers are daft to think she will hold out to come back, but also agree with a previous poster that there's nothing wrong with having a discussion about what possibilities there might be for this to happen.

i appreicate that my mb lets me come in later/go earlier - there is no point us both being there for the normal hours that i would work,if she was at work - but not all employers are as nice as mine

if they ever come home early from work,then i go early, and they play with their children

think the point nannyl was trying to make was that,her friends boss got rid of her nanny,as said couldnt afford to pay her YET they spent a lot of money on other stuff that they didnt need - so therefore they COULD have kept her on, if they wanted to

of course employers can spend their money how they want - just as us nannies can spend our salary on what we want

Stuff they 'didn't need'? According to the nanny? We don't even know what it was they bought, and again I would say that's immaterial. Maybe they were looking forward to a bit of a break from childcare payments and wanted to buy something, just for themselves, just cause they felt like it. Sorry, but this is a sore point, so exuse the humour failure. I often feel like I'm trudging in to work on the tube to pay the mortgage and the childcare and not much else, and boy do I appreciate the odd occasion when I am released a bit from these obligations and can spend money on stuff I 'don't need.'

i know exactly what all the things were, and yes YOU do not...

BUT Im not gonna go typing it all on here!

Not that it matters what it was though.

As you say:

"I agree its their money, they have earnt it and they are free to do exactly what they like with it."

I reckon they were choosing whether to keep the nanny on or buy their fripperies.

Clearly, the fripperies were worth more to them than the nanny.

When I had DS (child number 2) I actually got off very esily on this dilemma because the nanny and I were not seeing eye to eye. I was going to let her go, but before I did she resigned. We agreed she would stay until my maternity leave began. So I just hired the next one when I returned to work.

I think you should just approach the nanny and tell her you love her and really would like her to be with your family for as long as possible, but you just can't pay her wages when yours are not being paid in full. As her how she would feel about find other work (which you would be gad to help her find) during the maternity leave. If she is agreeable move forward with this. If she is not then you'll have to either pay her full wages or give her notice. If you can not pay her full wages, then obviously you will have to give her notice and hire a new nanny when you return to work. Although keep in mind that you will have to offer the job to the nanny you made redundant first. But, it sounds like you'd be happy to do this.

Another thing I would do is have this conversation with nanny say 3 months before your maternity leave begins. And when you have that conversation prepare written notice of the contract ending and give it to her. But of course let her know that this is not your preferrred option as you would love for her to stay. That way, if she changes her mind when your maternity leave begins you won't then have to pay her a month's wages as you won't yet have given her notice.

I personally would let the nanny go and hire a new one because I couldn't possibly afford to go on leave and pay a nanny. And I think there are lots of fab nannies out there. So finding a new one isn't that difficult.

of course im not suggesting i walk up to her and say ' you're fired for six months, then we want you to come back no questions asked'. of COURSE i'd talk to her about it first! what i am looking for here is a solution that works for BOTH of us if at all possible because if i cant find one, the only option would be to let her go and then rehire later, which works for neither of us. can't believe im getting grief for looking for a better alternative to that!
imananny - with respect, both you and your employers are lucky. while i will have savings to cover my pregnancy, they're to pay the mortgage. smp (from six weeks on) is just under £400 a month. my nanny costs me over £2200 a month, tax and ni included. so you do the maths.
thankyou to all the mums who made constructive suggestions - am going to look into possibility of a share

woodstock - that was what my friends boss did, hence why i mentioned it earlier on - it holds a bone of contention to me because the mum has done the same thing this summer - wants to take 9weeks off through summer (private schools) and play with her children, but wants her nanny back in sept so again the nanny has to leave and find temp work BUT i also do reliese that it does costs a lot to keep the nanny on WHEN the household income is halved for 4/6mths

i really do hope that you find a solution, and it sounds to me that you are the kind of caring employer who would love to keep her nanny ,while you are on ML, but you just cant afford it, so maybe if you can keep hre for 2 days and work for a friend 2 days, if she will willing then all will work out for you both