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Nanny on maternity leave, and I dont want her back. Legal advice please???

5 replies

ziopin · 26/09/2007 11:52

Our nanny is off on maternity leave until Feb. We have employed a new nanny to cover her materinty leave. The thing is the new nanny is so much better than the original!

Have had loads of issues with the old nanny (cannot cook!, spends a fortune on activities every week £30+ and not to mention the £50.00 bank charge!. I would have got ridden but she fell pregnany within a few months of her working for us!

Have told her that she can come back (with baby) at the end of her maternity leave, but now am loving the new nanny!

To top it off, our eldest (13) has said that the old nanny never speaks to him, not ever a hello or goodbye while the new one will spend time helping him with his homework or asking him to come and play football over the park with them.

What to do????????????

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ziopin · 26/09/2007 12:13

Sorry forgot to add, she was working full time for us before her maternity leave, but dd has started full time school and ds2 is in nursery every day until 12, the position is only part time now

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flowerybeanbag · 26/09/2007 12:41

Is there any reason you have to let her bring the baby to work? Is it in her contract or anything like that?

If not, just say you have been reflecting and feel that it would be difficult for her to maintain a reasonable level of care for your children and her new baby at the same time, so you have decided that you would not be prepared to allow her to bring the baby to work after all.

Just leave it at that - it's up to her to resign, not for you to say 'so will you still be coming back' or anything similar. Just let her know the change in circumstances and then say 'we look forward to seeing you back at work in February'. Put the ball in her court, that way you are not putting any pressure on her to resign but are just letting her know that the proposed changes in her terms and conditions will not be happening.

If she doesn't resign at that point and still proposes to come back, you will have to say goodbye to the new nanny, and then address your other performance issues with the old one on her return. Chances are she will resign when she realises she can't bring her baby to work anyway, problem solved!

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iheartdusty · 02/10/2007 14:49

I am no expert but it sounds as though her former position may be redundant. She has a full-time job; but the genuine requirements of the job are now part time.

so far as I am aware you can terminate her employment with paid notice. But I have no idea whether that can happen during maternity leave.

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hatwoman · 03/10/2007 20:57

first of all you are no more obliged to let the nanny bring her baby to work than any other employer. apart from a moral obligation stemming from your verbal (?) agreement.

so you might put her off returning by saying she can't bring baby.

second option is to sack her - difficult. it should say in your contract what you have to do to sack her - normally it would either be gross misconduct (which you don;t seem to have grounds for) or just general crapness - which maybe you do - but there shold be a process - usually verbal then written warnings - obviously not possible while she's on mat leave and you could find yourself on shakey ground.

third option is to make the job redundant and create a new job. that seems to me like an option because of the change of hours - (you could also maybe add in cleaning and ironing to the job description.) but - and this is the bit I don;t know about - I have a feeling that you'd have a legal obligation to offer her the new job...