poaching nursery staff (un pc!)

[bubbasmummy]

We are going to pull our kids out of nursery (long standing problems with staff turnover, poor management, etc) and get a full time nanny instead.

One of the girls who looks after our youngest is absolutely fantastic and we would love to have her nanny for us. I know that it is not pc to do so but does anybody have an tips for poaching nursery staff! I think that they are on around £12k a year (presumably gross) so a nanny job would be a big cash up for her (alot of them leave to nanny anyway) but what else should I be offering her to tempt her away (we thought about paying for her to do one training course a year if she wants, etc).

Others have already mentioned about legality, moral issue etc so I won't go on about those.

However, I would point out that although the nursery staff member appears to you to be fantastic, you are only seeing them at the beginning and end of the day . You should really try to get a bigger picuture of what they are like - arranging babysitting (most nurseries allow this) is a starting point and could be extended to doing some daytime care at a weekend.

You will want to check References, Qualifications and have an updated Enhanced Level CRB check.
I used to process CRB forms... it's amazing what you see on CRB forms of nursery staff. Some applicants had 4 pages worth of minor convictions - such as shop lifting - which did not disqualify them from working with children, though if I were employing them I would be very doubtful leaving them alone. Sure not everyone is like this and teenage girls may go through a stage of shop-lifting get caught and not do it again.

What I am getting at I suppose is that you don't really know anything about this nursery nurse, so like with any other nanny you need to go though the process of background checking. With a nursery which has a high turnover of staff, they may not check backgrounds very well - as they just want people who will work!

Agree with you nannywick