If one makes his/her nanny redundant...

[Strix]

How long would he/she have to wait to hire another nanny and not offer the one made redundant the new nanny position?

I am posting this thread on behalf of a friend, so if anyone here knows my nanny please don't alert her to a thread which is actually not about her.

Friend in question has two children but is planning another. So, if she makes this one redundant and hires an au pair, but then needs a full time nanny again in say another 6 or 12 months, will she have to offer the position to the old nanny?

Even Kate Moss has had a nanny crisis Mary didnt want to go on safari

It's in Expose

Imamum2, you've totally lost me - are you even reading the same thread?! Lol

In the past we have discussed on threads about "how to sack my nanny fairly". Parents will ask questions about that kind of thing, just like they will ask about how to recruit a nanny.

Not sure what your problem is Imamum2... maybe it's the heat

No I was on a different page to this maybe you should go back and read it isnt the Heat its snowing here ........... I wish Google Kate Moss in Expose her nanny didnt want to go on Safari just this conversation has been going on all afternoon excuse my punctuation Eva Brick doesnt like my typing ......lol

Who is Kate Moss? Not someone posting on here.
It's hot here in the UK... really fancy some snow... can you send some over?

You appear to be new here... it can take a while to settle in. Took me quite some time to be accepted.

NannyNick I am having a really hard time being accepted I think I've treaded on a few toes this afternoon if you read the last pages..........

Yes, you need to build credibility over a period of time. Contribute to threads with your views but try to avoid confrontation.

We don't all see pages... Mumsnet can be customised and some of us liked how it was in the old days, no pages.

It can take a good 6 months or more to become accepted in a new community. Use your Mumsnet Profile as a way of giving a brief into about you and your family. If you read mine you will see that I'm not even a Mum, so imagine how long it took me to become accepted. Even now I'm accepted on this board and a few others but not site wide and I've been here nearly 5 years!

Plenty of people have nanny crises, there isn't one here! Yet...

The 2 months was when they rehired, I don't know when she brought the claim but it doesn't really matter anyway. Either way 6-12 months for a new FT nanny would be okay. It's the transition to au pair that worries me.

If your friend can make a good case (and ML, reduced hours, changed duties, less pay would be fine), offers it to the nanny who will probably decline and then recruits an au pair they'll be fine, but what wouldn't be okay (IMO) is letting the nanny go and replacing them with an au pair.

The jobs are not that different - some nannies will do family laundry, I myself have been known to bung on a wash, iron a parental shirt and do the cleaning when the housekeeper is on holiday . It depends what the au pair will do at the end of the day.

"Au pairs's duties would differ somewhat from nanny duties, but not hugely." - would tend to indicate to me that the situation bears investigating. Check out suitable alternative employment

IMO nanny will refuse as:

"Whether a job is 'suitable alternative employment' depends on several things including:

• how close the work is to your current job -FAIRLY, NO LONGER SOLE CHARGE AND SOME ADDITIONAL DUTIES
• the terms of the job being offered - PROBABLY ROUGHLY EQUAL EXCEPT PAY (SEE BELOW)
• your skills, abilities and circumstances in relation to the job - NANNY PROBABLY OVERQUALIFIED AND OVERSKILLED!
• the pay (including benefits), status, hours and location of the job - AGAIN V DIFFERENT"

Therefore probably not suitable alternative employment, nanny is entitled to resign and loses no redundancy benefits.

The nanny in question is live in, the au pair will be too. The pay will clearly be different. The hours will probably be different. All she has to do is offer. I'm 99% certain nanny will decline, if not then you get a bargainous au pair who needs no training! If she doesn't offer then nanny could, theoretically, bring an unfair dismissal case as she wasn't offered the new post. Sorry, I rambled, but I hope it makes sense.

Let's remember though, there is no such thing (officially) as an au pair any more. They're just an inexperienced home childcarer/mother's help type person as far as the letter of the law goes. A lot of nanny jobs evolve as a child goes to school - my last employer went down from a nanny to an au pair with a reduction in hours/pay but not in duties. That was a mutual decision btw - I left to get married. The big difference for her was she was in France and could then employ an American rather than being restricted to EU passport holders.

Imamum2 - Strix is an excellent and very fair employer, I would advise you to read some of the things she has posted on here before entering into a slanging match.

Also Imamum2 (and I mean this in the nicest possible way) but good spelling, punctuation and spacing do make posts easier to read.

Paragraphs help to lay things out more clearly as excessive use of ellipses (and I'm a frequent offender make posts difficult to read as the dots jump around on the page for some people. This being a written mode of communication try not to type streams of conciousness - as you pointed out what is written can be misinterpreted but structuring things clearly can help avoid misunderstandings.

Frakkit Many Thanks, I will take your advice, I can spell just running a home and jumping on here in-between has proven difficult today..

NannyNick, why are you allowed to add your views thats brilliant, but does no-one add scope to the real issues in hand, why is that not allowed? Sometimes the truth, I respect people are asking for guiadance, that also is excellent.
But some of the replies on here have made some of these Ladies sound like Stepford Wives, LADIES Please dont be offended.
It must be really hard running your hectic lives I agree.... But I am not being confrontational.
Is there a lady out there who sees any of this at my level??

TBH I didn't really understand what you were trying to stay! Something about pasting stuff about your nanny crises all over the internet? Then some 'sleb twaddle' about Kate Moss's nanny not wanting to go on Safari?

There are plenty of nannies on here who are not parents, parents who are not nannies and nanny/parents. It's part of what makes this forum helpful, along with the wide range of life experience that comes from a diverse group of people.

I think you've also done remarkably well not to get flamed for making comments like 'being a stand in mummy'!

trying to say even

That'll teach me to do 5 things at once.

Imamum - no really - what is your point? It pains me that you have written so much and I can't make head or tail of it.

Frakkit Thankyou for your comments.
But at the end of the day a Nannies job is to fullfill the childs needs in a parental role.
When the parents are not present busy away working to fulfill their families needs.....

greybird ....Please go back and read from earlier this afternoon.
It pains me that some nannies are treated awfully.......

Imamum, your point would have made 10 times the impact for no stress if your original point had read "It strikes me that this could be a bit unfair on a nanny who is working hard for you".

Nannynick manages to put across the nanny's view again and again without ever offending or bringing the tone down to mudslinging. By all means join in, but please try to be constructive, not destructive. When you have been on here for a while you will see that many nanny employers will themselves come down quite harsh on the bad employers.

**

Anyway, Strix. In legal terms there is indeed a 3 month limit to bring a claim, but it can in extreme situations be waivered. If it was quite clear that the mum was going to return to work and need a full time nanny again, or if the au pair was going to do similar duties, similar hours, then it could be argued that this is not a real redundancy situation (although it would be hard to prove this when the mum was off having a third child)

If the nanny has worked for less than a year, her employment can be terminated for any reason at all (so long as it is a non discriminatory reason), so ask your friend if she has crossed the one year threshold (including whatever notice period is in place).

It is generally illegal to reduce the salary of someone without their consent, so telling a nanny that she is now an au pair, or even offering her the job on reduced hours and very reduced salary could land your friend in hot water. However if your friend is having to drop to au pair for financial reaosns (as I guess is the case here otherwise no-one in their right mind would drop from nanny to AP and then back up again), then this adds weight to the argument that there is a redundancy situation arising from reduced circumstances which may/may not be reversed in future.

The fairest thing to do in this situation would be for the mum to explain that they need to make cutbacks for financial reasons relating to the need to cover their outgoings during a period of maternity leave and that they cannot pay more than an au pair salary until the mother returns to work in say 12 months. The mother then needs to offer the nanny the reduced role as well as promising in writing to offer the nanny the old job back once maternity leave is over. this way the mother is doing everything completely fairly. The old role and the new au pair role will need to be set out, clearly showing the hours and the fact that the au pair role has much less responsibility than the nanny role (would be easy if for example the nanny role included full days of sole care for a toddler wheras the au pair role involves just school pick-ups). chances are the nanny will say thanks but no thanks, so mum would then need to support her as she looks for a new job.

If the mum is still at the planning stages then the logic woul be to take it as it comes - moving from nanny to au pair when kids go to school is a natural redundancy situation. And then hiring a nanny if the mum then has another baby shouldn't be an issue.

If the mum definately doesn't want the old nanny back once the baby is born then maybe taking on an au pair complicates things? Perhaps it would be simpler (if she is already PG for example) to tell the nanny she will keep her on until OML starts but will make her redundant then, arguing that Mum will probably not return to work after OML?

Oh there is a new peice of information. The nanny is on a 15 month fixed term contract. So I think it just ends when it ends without any obligation to renew it. Is this right?

AFAIK yes, fixed term is fixed term. No redundancy needed. Well done that employer for forseeing the situation!

Unusually Frakkit, your last point is wrong. Being on a fixed term contract does not affect your rights to statutory redundancy payment, or to be notified about other available jobs.

However there is no obligation to renew a fixed term contract, and no obligation to select any employee whose position is being made redundndant, whether at the end of a fixed term contract or not, for any particular vacancy (provided the reasons for not selecting the employee are not discriminatory within the meaning of the relevant Acts, and the employee is not on maternity leave).

But nanny has been there 15months so no redundancy, right? Payments kick in at 2 years (or I've missed out in the past!).

I would like to open a line would any of you be interested to follow me Imamum2.Strix with respect has your friend signed with an agency or was the contract agreed person to person this will change things please let me know because your friend will not have to pay redundancy if she follows some guidelines as in doing regular apraisals will let you know more if you are interested sorry if I upset you in our earlier conversation .x

How would signing with an agency make a difference?

I don't think an agency would make a difference in this case either

Regular appraisals don't change a redundancy situation. They can help in dismissal cases as they provide a paper trail to show the employee has consistently failed to improve but that doesn't seem the issue in this case?