Our wonderful nanny is pregnant.....but what to offer her? As much an employment issue as a nanny issue

[foxinsocks]

Our wonderful nanny has announced she is pregnant. Naturally, we are delighted for her as I think it's something she's wanted and she'll be a fab parent!

I've told her I would love her to come back afterwards. A baby does not put me off at all and my children would be delighted but I think, quite sensibly, she feels having looked after other people's children for years, she'd quite like to have some time looking after her own child without having to look after others too!

Now that leaves me in a bit of a dilemma. I assume she might not resign and then we would have to pay maternity pay and then she could resign when this had ended?

But if she has no intention of coming back, can she still go on maternity leave?

Thing is, we all know that we can't tell how we are going to feel when we have a baby and I have a sneaking suspicion that she may come back over time.

But obviously, I am going to need to employ someone to do her job and am now wondering at what point to do this because if she does take maternity leave, for those first 6 weeks, I will be paying 90% of her salary plus 100% of a new nanny's salary which will be extremely hard financially (will have to come out of savings).

Of course, I am prepared to pay her, I'm not trying to dodge that, but am wondering whether I should sit down with her and say that if she is sure she isn't going to come back that she should resign and I will give her a lumpsum. But I am worried she will think I'm trying to do her out of maternity pay iyswim.

Any thoughts?

I may be wrong FIS but I think as asmall employer you can claim SMP back from the govnt. YOu need to look up the rules.

On the other point you must not have the discussion with her at all.

She is entitled to Mat leave and SMP and the time to make her own decisions.

Leave well alone and enjoy seeing her bloom. You do not want to ruin a good relationship and find yourself with a claim for unfair dismissal and sex discrimination. The damages you could be forced to pay are horrendous compared to the mat pay you sre now contemplating. You might be looking at a remortgage not just raiding your savings.

Agree you get paid to pay her maternity pay - you just claim it back.

you can claim back SMP but I'm not sure what happens in those first 6 weeks when you pay 90% of the salary. Not sure you get that back (but might be mistaken - you'd think I should know really ).

I won't initiate it then, you are right, but I have a feeling she will initiate it with me.

Thing is, whenever I've got pregnant and had a job I knew I wasn't going back to, I've resigned but only because otherwise I would have had to pay back extra maternity pay (as it was in my contract).

With no extra maternity pay in her contract, I wondered how it worked for employees with respect to resigning after maternity leave. I assume you can do this whenever you feel like it or do you have to give a date when you are coming back when you go on maternity leave?

You can't get her to resign if she's not coming back. I don't think you can even ask her what her intentions are in that regard.

If you're giving her 6 weeks @ 90%, then SMP, I'm also pretty sure she wouldn't need to pay anything back, because that is the legal minimum. I assume your employer gives more than that?

I sympathise, but the fact is she's completely entitled to have her 90% pay for 6 weeks, have her SMP and then not come back.

oh no, what I meant was last time I was pregnant (like years and years ago), because I had been working for my employer for a while and it was a large company, they had quite generous maternity pay in addition to stat maternity pay but there was a clause in your contract that if you took the additional pay, you had to come back for X months afterwards.

In the nanny's contract, she only gets statutory pay so I wasn't sure, with just statutory pay, if there is any obligation to return because I seem to remember you have to give a date when you intend to return to work so I wondered if there comes a point, if you KNOW you don't intend to return, where you have to inform your employer.

Just that if she doesn't resign, obviously I have to employ someone else to do her job and then keep in mind that the nanny could come back to it so will have to watch the notice periods etc. and I will need fair warning that she intends to return (or not!).

ok, have looked it up on businesslink

basically, if she doesn't resign, I have to keep her job open for a year (26 weeks of OML and 26 weeks of AML).

Thing is, I don't want to get out of paying her. I don't want you to think that. Am quite happy to pay what she is entitled to.

BUT what I want to do is employ someone else (which I am going to have to do anyway) without the fear in the back of my mind that she could just announce she wants to return, then I'm going to have to 'sack' the new nanny (which I would have to do), pay the new nanny for her notice period, and take the old nanny back.

I would really like her to come back but I also don't want my children to get attached to someone new only to turf them out iyswim and also, what I really really don't want is the uncertainty of what we are doing for a whole year.

I hope that makes sense without sounding like a dragon which I'm not at all!

from here

Advice about statutory maternity pay for nannies
Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) is payable to a nanny who is employed for a period of twenty-six weeks continuing into the fifteenth week before the baby is due. SMP is payable for up to 39 weeks), starting anytime from the 11th week before the baby is due. The amounts payable are 90% of the nanny?s average weekly earnings for the first six weeks and at a rate stipulated by legislation for the remaining weeks. (2008/09 SMP is at the rate of £117.18 per week.)

SMP is fully recoverable by a small employer together with an additional 4.5% and is recoverable by deducting the amounts paid from future Tax and National Insurance Contributions or by obtaining the SMP from the Inland Revenue in advance (which Taxing Nannies can organize on your behalf).

A more specific page

I know it isn't ideal from your point of view as an employer, but you really have to employ a maternity temp and keep your nanny's job open for her if she decides to return. If she decides not to come back you can always offer the job permanently to the temp.

You need to hire a temp nanny.But if you want to keep options open you could say its temp for so many mths but may become permanant

A temp nanny could be on a monthly renewing contract. You would need to hire the temp nanny with their understanding that the contract is not permanent and is covering for maternity leave.

A booklet which may help - Pregnancy and Work - what you need to know as an employer
This will explain all the MUST DO things, such as what your employee is entitled to. Such as: paid time off for anti-natal appointments, maternity leave, maternity pay.

HMRC also have a booklet (E15) Employer Handbook for Statutory Maternity Pay Also HMRC has a Statutory Maternity Pay calculator.

ACAS (08457 47 47 47) can provide you with free advice, plus I suspect some booklets/leaflets.

The Guide for Employees may also be worth look, as it will help you know what time periods your nanny has to give in relation to changing the date they want Maternity Leave to start and end. For the end date, they MUST give 8 weeks notice, so your temp nanny would get sufficient notice that their contract was to end.

thanks guys. I see from one of those leaflets, I can actually pay SMP in a lumpsum if I want to. I also need to find out how I get it back from HMRC!

Yes a temp nanny might be the best option. Am hoping it won't cost me too much more tbh.

8 weeks notice is reasonable actually isn't it because a good 2 months will give me a chance to sort out what's going to happen.

Hi

I have been through a v. similar situation to you - our wonderful nanny has just had a baby. I was worried about how it would all work out but touch wood seems to be OK.

Financially, her maternity pay is covered (SMP is fully recoverable + 4.5% to cover 'ers NI that you will be paying on top). I have recovered all of my nanny's SMP in one lump sum - a matter of gathering various bits of information (NI number, dates of maternity leave, pay etc.) and completing on-line form via HMRC website. My cheque was with me within 2 weeks. The HMRC website provided all of the info and guidance I needed including maternity pay calculator etc.

It's the practical side which is more of a challenge. Our nanny is only taking 3 months maternity leave (completely her choice) which we are covering through using holiday and friends/family to cover (the nanny works 3 days a week so not full-time to cover). If it had been longer I would have used a temp nanny and put her on a contract which matched the length of the maternity leave.

I had a full and frank conversation with our nanny when she was about 20 weeks about her intentions in terms of going on maternity leave, length of leave and intentions to return. She understands our point of view in needing to have reliable childcare sorted out and did all she could to help with that process. Our nanny will be bringing the baby with her when she comes back to work. She's a great nanny and I am sure she will be as committed when she returns with the baby.

Good luck and hope it works out for you.

ah thanks popilol. That's really really helpful and it seems like we will mirror your process exactly.

I'd absolutely love our nanny to come back, baby and all, but tbh, I think she hasn't made up her mind yet (and seems to be erring towards the not coming back) so I think I might need to get quite a long term temp cover but I will have a more serious conversation with her in a few weeks time. She too, like your nanny, wants to keep us in the loop as much as possible.

Just out of interest, when you say you have recovered all your SMP, is this in advance of you paying it out (as it sounds like she hasn't gone on maternity leave yet) or is this after you've paid it out?

Just wanted to add that you only have to offer her the job back on the same terms as she was employed previously and bringing her baby with her changes the terms.

This means that if you employed a temporary nanny who you loved and your old nanny did decide to come back but wanted to bring her baby, it would be perfectly possible (from a legal point of view) to not allow her to change the terms of the contract and so keep the temporary nanny.

I think this is correct but I am no legal expert.

Hi there, i'm a nanny who has just had a baby and returned to my old job, although only parttime. My boss got all of my smp pay before I'd even started my maternity.

I'd also advise not paying it all in one go as the nanny may decide she didn't want to work fulltime and come back to you, she may want to look for something eles that wil suit her family life a bit better with a baby. If she started a new job it may be before her maternity leave with you is finished. Then she would not be entiteled to the rest of the maternity pay I hope that makes sense.

one further (slight) complication. Your nanny will accrue holiday while she is on maternity leave so whether she returns or not you will need to budget for paying that. Given that her entitlement to paid holiday stops when she resigns she is actually better off not letting you know until as late as possible. We were in your position last year - fairly sure that our nanny wouldn't want to return, happy with whatever she decided to do but needing some degree of certainty for planning purposes. We sorted it all out by talking to her.

I would be very careful about your plan to 'have a serious conversation' with your nanny about this. There is no way she can be expected to know what she wants to do so early on. She gets a year off on maternity leave, so much can change during that time and I think putting her under any pressure to make a decision so early is the wrong thing to do. In a 'normal' employment situation if a company started having those conversations with pregnant employees there would be complaints, quite rightly. Nannies are no different to other employees. I do get a bit irritated when I see nanny employers on here saying things like 'I don't want to do her out of her entitlements but....' Why 'but'? You should imagine what behaviour you would consider acceptable from your own employer and work on that basis.

You should work on the assumption that she will take the full year off, and then come back. If she chooses at any point to do anything different, she must let you know. If she wants to come back earlier she must give you 8 weeks' notice, but if she decides not to come back at all, she only needs to give as much notice as is in her contract, which is probably 4 weeks I imagine.

As MrsWobble says, she also gets full holiday entitlement during her maternity leave, and is therefore better off not resigning until the last minute to make sure she gets that. If you put what could be conceived as any pressure on her to resign sooner than that, thereby doing her out of her holiday pay, that could be a problem if she then finds out what she's missed out on. Employees working for companies usually have access to maternity policies outlining what their entitlements are to pay, holiday, benefits etc and what will happen during their maternity leave. Nannies don't usually have that so are more likely to be a bit in the dark as to what they are entitled to. Don't take advantage of that. If she resigns sooner than a year she will be worse off and she may not know that.

Best bet imo is to assume she will be off for a year, don't question her about her intentions, hire a temp nanny, making it clear that it's maternity cover and therefore may go permanent, and then see what happens.

just to get away from the legallese a bit and talka bout the human side of this it could be marvelous news for you longer term. If your children adore her it will be lovely for them to see her throught the pregnancy and meet her new baby when it is born, and if you are lucky it will be a continuing relationship. Our nanny of some years back started with us when DS1 was 6 weeks old and went from live in to live out nanny when she got married, she then went on maternity leave when DCs were 7 & 3 - I relied on a nursery and my mother and some summer holiday cover to tide me over - then she registered as a child minder and had my 2 at her house until the oldest was 11 and she moved to another part of the country. She is part of our extended family and DS1 who has just turned 18 uses her as confidente and agony aunt - by being flexible and keeping the relationship going we all benefited and I would urge you to keep calm and see what happens - things usually turn out for the best if you do.

you know what flowery, sometimes you piss me off

you know me better than that

I am NOT taking the piss with her here. But I need to know for my children's sakes what her plans are.

I am not going down some discimination path here. Having a serious chat with her is something she has already asked for.

So quite frankly, you can run and jump with your accusations about me doing her out of her entitlements because that was never my intention as you well know.

It's just a cash flow issue as to how it is done, whether by lump sum if she is serious about not intending to return (which is possible) or whether I go through the process of paying it week on week.

I think I made it perfectly fucking clear actually that I didn't intend to ever do her out of anything.

And employing a temp nanny is not as easy as you make out either.

But you know, think it'll be the last fucking time I ask for advice if that's the way you are going to respond

Can't see anywhere in my post me accusing you of doing her out of her entitlements.

Can't see anywhere in my post me saying it's easy employing a temp.

Can't see anywhere me making any suggestions that you would discriminate, definitely not intentionally anyway.

But obviously if you don't like advice you are given, you are more than free to ignore it. Shame you feel the need to rant and swear at someone just because you don't agree with them though.

no, you said in your post

'I do get a bit irritated when I see nanny employers on here saying things like 'I don't want to do her out of her entitlements but....' Why 'but'? You should imagine what behaviour you would consider acceptable from your own employer and work on that basis.'

I seriously resent that accusation flowery. I mean seriously. I am actually personally offended that you put me in that category. I have NEVER in my life done anyone out of their entitlements and would never do so and I, quite honestly, feel horrendously personally offended that you decide I should be grouped into that category.

Though I obviously don't feel as strongly as fox, I also questioned flowery's take on this.

Flowery - you seem to come across as if you feel every nanny employer should know the ins and outs of all employment laws. When, usually, a nanny employer has no experience of HR and only has the one employee. They are having to learn all the ins and outs of being an employer as they go along - not many would take a crash course on every senario that may occur during a nannies employment - and quite a few of them come on here for advice on such matters.

When it comes to maternity leave - not many people know that you can claim back maternity pay from the government, so the issue off how to pay this to the nanny and also afford and pay someone else is bound to come up and to be a worry.

Aside from the money side of things, most would want to know the situation with maternity leave - length and whether they are coming back - so that they are able to prepare their children for the nannies absence and possible return. It's not as easy as being a big company that employs lots of people and can cover maternity leave relatively essily, we're talking about small children and big changes for them.

Not critsising your advice, flowery - it's great that you have the knowledge and are willing to share it - just the way that advice comes across occasionally.

I'm sorry you feel my advice comes across that way nbee, I certainly don't expect every nanny employer to know everything about employment law.

In this particular instance obviously I have no intention of either explaining or qualifying my comments, or in fact engaging in any further discussion with someone who feels the need to speak to me as foxinsocks has done, so as far as I'm concerned the conversation is over, which is a shame but there we go.