Sick pay for nannies?

[74slackbladder]

Anyone help with this ?
We are looking to employ a nanny and drawing up the contract. Is it normal to pay a nanny full pay if they are sick ? If so how long for? Bottom line is that if she is sick and cannot therefore look after the children the chances are we will have to pay someone else to do what she is not able to, so therefore we would be shelling out twice ... what is the norm ? I know she would be able to claim SSP but am wondering if this is a bit mean to only write ssp into the contract ?

I think it is perfectly standard to put SSP only into the contract. You can pay her full rate for the time she is sick at your discretion but you are not contractually obliged to do so. If she seems good and reliable and not prone to having a lot of time off sick, you could always revise the contract later.

We have allowed 5 sick days for our nanny. Anything after that is only SSP.

thanks. have gone for just ssp and we can review as we feel appropriate further down the line

going off on a tangent, does anyone know whether its normal for the employer to pay for the nanny's ofsted registration? she is new to nannying having come from our son's nursery. initially we offered to pay it but on reflection are wondering whether she should pay half

What benefit would she get from Ofsted registration? If you have already employed her, seems that the benefit would be yours now - unless you set it as a requirement for employment BEFORE you employed her.

Generally the norm for the parents to pay the Ofsted fee, they get the tax benefit from it - nanny would usually pay other associated costs like paediatric first aid course and nanny insurance.

its for our benefit in that we would be able to pay her in childcare vouchers, so i guess the only benefit for her is that if she continues nannying after she has finished working for us, she's already got it under her belt.
so i guess when i think about it it should be for us to pay. our only worry is that she gets a few months into the job and decides she''s had enough and then we are out of pocket.

Also should have said that it can be put into her contract that if she leaves part way through an employment year then you can claim back pro-rata. So you are not stung if you have paid for the year and she leaves after 2/3/4 months.

that's what we were thinking. saying that if she packs in less than six months in, she pays back 50% of the cost or something...got any wording for that ? this is a first for us and we are trying to get our heads round the contract stuff!

nbee84's suggestion is a good one. Just include in the contract that the fee paid by you will need to be reimbursed by the nanny if she leaves prior to 'x date', and can be withheld by you from her final payment. It would be fair to include a clause that if she is dismissed due to the position no longer being available (ie, not because she has acted inappropriately!) that the fees do not need to be reimbursed. That protects her in case you decide to stop using a nanny.

thanks fp10. that sounds fair.
she's a nice girl and i dont think she would deliberatly try and shaft us but who knows what might happen!

Very rough, but something like:

Ofsted registration will be paid by the Employer. If the employment is terminated by the employee before X date (being 12 months of employment) then the employee will be required to refund the registration fee at a proportional rate to the length of employment. The Employer is entitled to withold this sum from the Employee's final salary payment. If the employment is terminated by the Employer because the position of nanny is no longer required then the fee will not need to be repaid. If the employment is terminated by the Employer because of disciplinary action, then this sum will be required to be repaid at a proportional rate to the length of employment.

Actually, thinking about it, Ofsted registration may take some time so you may want to make it - 12 months from successful Ofsted registration - rather than a specific date.

fp10. you are marvellous!
thank you!

Your welcome! I was working on my nanny contract this evening due to a change in employment conditions and was on a roll !!

Many employers Prob won't agree to this but I wouldn't sign a contract without sick pay as I need to protect myself

I think is fair to have a weeks sick pay on full pay and then ssp

I get more (tho lucky) but understand that employers are afraid that if have sick pay the nanny will just take days off silly nilly

tbh most professional nannies are happy to go in if feeling poorly as long can have a sofa/tv day

what is annoying when boss's are home apparently DYING yet then get up and lounge on sofa and start to interfere so dc play up

and regards ofsted it is no benifit for the nanny to be ofsted reg and don't benifit from the vouchers so the employer pay all costs apart from nanny insurance. So the 2 day ped 1st aid and the £103 fee

but again can understand that the employer may pay then nanny leave so having a clause saying pay back pro rata is a good idea or can be very exspensive for the MB if nannies keep leaving

tho maybe the MB should ask theirselves why the nannies leave iyswim

Blondes - I think you're quite right! No sick leave at all is really unfair. I don't think many employers realise just what it does for them, too. Our nanny was ill, and just getting worse and worse until I had to pretty much order her to go to the GP. GP told her she was so ill that she actually needed to stay away from the children for a week because of how bad what she had was and how contagious it was (DCs had some of what she had, but not all of it). If she didn't have the sick leave I don't think I would have been in the position to make her see her GP.

She was able to take the week off without any loss of pay. However it does mean that she doesn't have any more sick leave left. Fortunately I am in the position that if the nanny was really ill I can let her to organise time off in lieu. If she were off sick I still wouldn't have her anyway so would have to organise alternate care or time off anyway, but by letting her take time off in lieu I get the option of getting some extra babysitting evenings or some longer days at a time when it is convenient to me and our nanny doesn't end up losing income unexpectedly. It means our nanny is more likely to take time off when she is run down and earlier on in her illness than letting it run until it gets really bad and she would require more time off.

Oh and it means I have a happy nanny .... priceless!!!

If you put SSP in then there's nothing to stop you discretionarily giving pay.

IMO employer pays Ofsted reg fee (yearly) and nanny pays to keep herself in a position to be registered. If she's coming from a nursery she should have a relevant qualification and 2 day paeds first aid anyway.

Paying back the fee if she gives notice is perfectly acceptable IMO. The only benefit to her is when she's job hunting.

fp10 you sound a very fair employer

Like you, blondes, I have sick pay in my contract, for the same reasons. As a nanny with over 20 years experience and a good track record for not taking time off sick, I feel that justifies asking for sick pay in my contract. But for someone employing a nanny that has only been working as one for a year or two they have no idea if this sort of person will take time off after a heavy weekend or just with a bad cold. So makes sense to put SSP in.

Agree with you on the Ofsted payment but I personally feel that the nanny should pay for her own paed 1st Aid - we would hardly be professional nannies if we didn't have it, I think it is an absolute minimum requirement that every nanny should have it.

ditto, in nearly 20yrs of nannying i have had off 3 days for hospital general surgery (colposcopys) and then 3 weeks 3 yrs ago for blood clot and was in hospial for a week seriously ill

my boss's were fab, obv paid me and then my friends to cover my working days - dh is self employed and hurt his back, if i hadnt been paid then we would have had no salary coming in for over a month

in the end, i put my terms in a contract,and if the employer wants me they will agree to them, if they wont then i wont accept the job

i feel that ssp isnt much, one weeks full ssp is way less than a days salary for me, and 5 days a year if full time and pro rata is too much to ask for

isnt too much to ask

i have first aid, recently did it, but not the 2 days ped course as didnt see the point, the 2nd day the teacher said to me was really a bit pointless, was about menigitis and burns, which she covered on our 1st day

just read back what i wrote and didnt mean learning about menigitis was pointless, more the point that need another day/6hrs to learn it, would be better to have an 8hr day and do all in one day iyswim

thanks everyone for your thoughts.
i think we will just stick with ssp for now. she's a young girl and its all a bit of an unknown. i would not begrudge her paid sick leave if she is genuinely sick and needs the time to get herself well, but i don't want to lay ourselves open to being done over basically.
she has the first aid thing already so we dont need to worry about that
thanks everyone!