au pairs and paid holidays

[phraedd]

we have a new au pair (another fantastic german girl)

She has been here 4 weeks and the children adore her as do my DH and I. We want to keep her happy but we are still quite new to the whole au pair thing.

"A" is going to take next Thursday - Monday off to go home for dental treatment. She is then taking 10 - 14 days at christmas and another week off in February. This is nearly 4 weeks which is quite a bit as she is only going to be with us for 6 months in total.

My husband and i are both self employed and will obviously have to take time off work to cover the childcare that she would normally cover. This means that we are not earning anything (as we don't get paid holidays)

How much of it do we pay her for?

An aupair is paid pocket money, so if they are not at your home I don't feel they should be paid.
But where they are at your home for part of the week, I would pay that weeks usual pocket money.

I have a deal with my au pairs that once they have been with me for 6 months, they then get 2 weeks paid holiday for the year (I am lucky that in general I have had long-term APs). In the meantime, if for some reason they want time off, we either add extra hours to the following weeks and I keep paying as usual, or we do a deal for weekend hours or something like that. I am pretty flexible and understand that part of the AP thing is to travel a bit - our current Ap is off to Paris and Oxford for a couple of trip over Xmas and we are just going to make up her hours gradually over school hols and in the new year.

We don't pay if our au pair is not at our home - she has taken a week off at half term, and will take 2 weeks off at Christmas (out of a total of 5 months with us) and we will not pay when she is away. I would pay if she had one day off in a week ie. Friday but I would ask her to do any jobs which could be done earlier in the week (obviously would have to cover childcare ourselves though).
Could you use an after-school club or holiday club whilst your au pair is away (we are thinking about holiday clubs to cut down the amount of cover dh and I have to do)?

I offer 2 weeks' of paid leave at the end of the 1 year contract, if she stays until the end. The idea is that the last 2 weeks is up to her what she wants to do. She can stay on in the house (or arrange with us for her family to stay in the house whilst we are on our summer vacation) or she can leave with her 2 weeks' pocket money.

If she wants to take an odd day off, then like wilbur and millarkie, we make up time on other days. For longer periods like 4 days' dental treatment, I would not pay pocket money for those days.

Christmas hols are theoretically unpaid - and I say that upfront. But if the aupair is good, I pay her anyway ie just continue the standing order payments into her account over that period as a christmas present.