Eeek! Nanny who was on maternity leave and said she wasn't coming back now wants to come back and we already have a replacement!

[AlFreshco]

Our nanny went on maternity leave last year. We arranged for another nanny to join us when she went on leave. The new nanny knew our other nanny had gone on maternity leave.

Old nanny met new nanny and told her she wasn't going to come back. She also wrote us a letter to say the same but that she'd like her maternity pay week by week (as she was entitled to).

I am still paying that now.

I have called her a few times to check how she is and there was no indication of her wanting to come back.

She has now called me, today, and told me she wants to come back to work. She says she will be flexible on dates but basically she wants to return in the next few months.

I have 3 months notice in the contract of new nanny.

I am pleased old nanny wants to come back but I do feel dreadful for new nanny who was under the impression this was a permanent job because of old nanny saying she wasn't coming back. I assume I can just write her a letter saying we are ending your employement and here is 3 month's notice but I do feel bad about it.

Also, can old nanny dictate when she comes back? Because the way it is looking like it will work is that there will be a month when both nannies are working for us (i.e. I will have to pay both as new nanny goes on leave for 2 weeks in March, pre booked ages ago and I was going to have to find cover then anyway so new nanny might as well start then which would, if I gave 3 months notice today, mean I was paying 2 nannies for around 4-5 weeks )

I'm not sure that you can actually take your other nanny back. Did she send you a formal resignation notice, dated and accepted by you? How long has she not been working for you?

If you ended your new nanny's employment and hired the old nanny, in new nanny's contract she would most probably be entitled to redundancy as you are hiring someone else to do her job through no fault of her own.

Can flowery or someone else legal come along and help?

How confusing! Do you work out their tax and NI yourself or use a company like nanny tax - because they might be able to offer some advice?

sounds to me like she resigned. you need flowery!

Surely if you have a letter from her saying shes not coming back then shes not coming back. You can't just decide to come back and expect to.

Can you give us some dates against when all these things happened? Was it before or after giving birth that old nanny decided she was/wasn't returning? Presumably, she is not planning on bringing the baby back with her to work?

if she wrote you s letter to say she wasnt coming back, then she has lost all rights to her old job (i think)

but also think mums are entitled to not say if they are or arnt going to return,up to 4weeks before return date

(people do this all the time in offices, yes it is a pita not to know when dealing with something as personal as a nanny, but its the law)

or you can offer her job back as it was, ie without her bringing her own baby to work

surely the temp nanny was just a temp, and knew that the job would come to an end when nanny came back, so suprised to hear you have 3mths notice

but yes ask flowery - she would be in the know

I agree. If old nanny gave you a written letter stating she was not comming back and that letter was dated and signed, then she has resigned. You now have a contract with new nanny, and I think it would be dreadful to just yank it due to no fault of her own.

If old nanny did not resign, then I'm afraid you may have two nannies who are both entitled to be your employee! Yikes! Let's hope this is not the case.

"but also think mums are entitled to not say if they are or arnt going to return,up to 4weeks before return date"

This is true if she did not resign.

Are you very happy with nanny number 2? If so, I would keep her and tough to nanny 1 tbh. She said she wasn't coming back, she can't just snap her fingers and demand her job back.

Complicates things if you would actually prefer to have nanny #1 back. Anybody know how she should/would deal with nanny #2 if that is the case?

sorry to leave this, was at work

her letter was NOT a letter of resignation unfortunately. She wrote in her letter that this was her feeling (that she didn't want to come back) but that she would give me a letter of resignation that would coincide with her notice period and the end of maternity leave (so in her case 8 weeks).

I think she also had to give me 8 weeks notice if she wanted to return.

I called her during her maternity leave (mainly to check she was ok!) and she did not give me any indication that she planned to do anything other than resign.

But obviously, her circumstances have changed, and now she wants to come back to work (yes bringing the baby with her - I have no problem with this).

Her timing is good because this is the period where she would have to inform me what she was doing. So yes, I believe she is entitled to come back.

I do feel awful for nanny 2, especially as she was also given the impression (by nanny 1) that she wasn't coming back!

Can you clarify which nanny you want to have?
I get the impression you don't want to keep nanny2, want nanny1 back even with her bringing baby with her. Is that right? Bringing baby with her makes it a new job, only has right to return to same job.

I guess one way around this would be to say she can come back but without own child - in the hope she wouldnt want to and would resign as you only have to offer the job back on same conditions ie-no child with her.

If what you actually want is for nanny 1 to be back with her baby, then the only problem is your guilt about nanny 2 (and possibly that you may have agreed to extend nanny2's contract and notice period somewhat prematurely). Otherwise you just need to explain to nanny2 that nanny1 is entitled to change her mind and this is sometimes what happens in these circumstances...

Put nanny 2 on her notice period. You can always change your mind and beg her to stay. 3 months is a very long notice period for a temp anyway. Are you sure contract is perm and not fixed period? She won't be entitled to redundancy as she's been there less than 2 years. Also double check the holiday arrangements. Paid holiday will be pro-rata and assuming nanny 2 has had time over Christmas you may not have to pay all of her 2 weeks march holiday. Again, check the contract v

So, she has 3 months notice.

You then say to nanny 1 her official return date is x if she agrees and then give her the option of doing the 2weeks in march as a settling in period with baby to see if it works under a temp contract with the same conditions as the revised one where she can bring her baby with her. I think you then avoid the problem of having 2 nannies, your old nanny may welcome the staged return with 2 weeks on, 3 weeks off to recover/sort out what's going on. I think she will also have accrued holiday during her ML so you could suggest she takes some of her holiday on full pay then and bring her start date forward to March if the temp contract idea is a non-starter.

You need someone legal to check my suggestions but I think it's fair all round.

But is nanny 2 on a permanent contract now? Oh dear, this would be making me very nervous! (Sorry, realise not helpful.)

What nanny do you want?

thanks frakkin, yes I think that sounds fair

she's on 3 months notice as that's the notice period I have in my contract (just so that they matched!). She's not on a temp contract, I pay her as a permanent worker but she knew it was maternity cover so even though we all thought it would be permanent, she knew from the start why she was there though I suspect she will be very upset (and I do feel sorry for her). As she has been employed under a year, unless I'm being discriminatory (which I'm not), and I follow the notice period in her contract, there isn't really much she can do.

That's odd about the nanny returning to work with child scenario - I suppose if you applied it to an office job, I can see why that wouldn't be acceptable (saying you were returning with your child) but I would have thought that the expectation of a nanny having a baby would be that they returned to work with the baby so I'm not sure that would wash in the labour court (if you said they could not return to the job) - it feels discriminatory (and also means they have no protection on maternity leave) but I can see where you are coming from.

Nick, I have no preference re the nannies - we have been very lucky and always had fabulous nannies. Nanny 1 was with us for a very long time so I am happy that she wishes to return as we all love her dearly. I know that no-one can tell how they will feel when they have a baby but she was totally convinced she would want to stay at home with her baby and not work, even in the early months, but I suspect as the baby has got bigger, she finds herself wanting to come back to nannying, which is her perogative given that she never resigned properly.

It's tricky being an employer in this circumstance because there is no right to be informed about when someone wants to return till 8 weeks before they want to which is quite tricky!

It's not that they can't return, it's more than they don't have the right to bring their baby automatically. Bringing their baby changes the job (it's not longer sole care of your children for example, it would affect whether you ever wanted to share her etc) so they have the right to return to the same job (without their baby) but not to return bringing baby along too. Depending on what your original contract says I suspect there will be changes to make and you might want to formalise what happens if baby is sick or your children are sick (she still turns up), medical appointments for her child (do yours go too?), whether food is provided for her child - a whole host of things to consider when you have a nanny with own child.

I'd think very carefully about letting the original nanny bring her child to work with her as frakkinaround makes some very good points.

Its natural instinct to favour your own child so your children may not be foremost in her mind. What happens if she wants her baby to do x activity but yours dont want to go along or have other commitments? Who provides all the equipment she will need and the storage?

Added to that, given she will have no own childcare costs, i'd expect at least a reduction in salary to match what she would be paying in childcare or a good percentage of salary reduced to take into account its now effectively a nanny share position not one to one care.

actually you find that you dont favour you own child as you go out of your way to make sure you dont. i am a childminder and my daughter gets treated the same as the other children. if not worse as she told to wait all the time till a deal with another child.
also i agree with a wage reduction but not to the same scale as would she would pay in childcare costs other wise there would be no finacial benifit to the nanny comimg back to work with her own child.
also with regards to activities i think it would be far if every1 at least got 1 activity/class they wanted to do and understood that in order for them to do that activity the other children have to come along even though they might not want to. so they therefore have to attend the other children activity/classes its all fair as the same would occur with brother and sister ie brother has to take sister to dancing and wait then sister has to take brother to football and sit and watch.

there's been lots of threads abt nannies bringing their baby - it can work very well. but, like f says, it changes the job, and you'll need a differnt contract, need to think abt sickness, food, activities and, usually, it means less pay. it's not remotely discriminatory to say that she can't bring her baby - a nanny has no more right to bring her baby to worl than you or i do. they are unusually lucky in that many employers will let them -and in that theoir choice of job makes it feasible.

Another thing you might like to cinsider is where you will be in two years when nann1 may very well have a second child. I think nannies usually stop the nannying thing when they have a second child just because it gets too difficult for them. Much easier at that point to be a childminder and get the other children to come to you.

If nanny2 has a permanent contract, then I believe you have 2 nannies. Goodness, I don't envy you. But I do think you should get your paperwork in order because one of these nannies has been led to believe she has a job she doesn't have. I would tell nanny1 that she can't bring the child or offer her a considerable pay cut (but not the cost of her childcare. That is too much. Probably 30% of her salary). Then I would hope she doesn't take the job, leaving you with only one nanny.

strix - the op actually wants her old nanny back and is happy for her to bring her own child

yes i feel for nanny 2 BUT shit happens if you take on a temp ml position - yes the job may be perm or the nanny may return

Frakkin,

As other people have said, your old nanny has no automatic right to come back to work and bring her child with her, and it wouldn't be discrimination if you said no.

It sounds like your main problem is that you can't afford to pay both nannies during the overlap period. Is that right? Well, there might be a solution.

Nanny 1 has the right to come back to her old job, and only has to give 8 weeks' notice of her intention to return (or to come back on the date she originally notified as her return date before she went off). However, she has no right to come back to a modified job (outside the right to request flexible working. That wouldn't cover working with baby. It's about hours, etc).

SO

If you wanted to, you could say to her that you were willing for her to bring her DC with her to work, but for you to agree to that you would like to delay her return to work until X date (so that you have, say, one week's handover instead of a long overlap). It's then her call whether she comes back on the date she wants without baby, or waits and brings the baby. Chances are she'll pick the latter.