Tag: hiring a nanny

Holiday Allowance for nannies

Our recommended partners at www.PayrollForNannies.co.uk provide payroll advice for
parents and have created this content.
A full time nanny is entitled to 28 days holiday (5.6 weeks) which includes bank holidays.
Employers are entitled to choose all the dates of holiday nanny should take, but in practice
nanny normally chooses 2 weeks while the employer chooses the other 2 weeks.
In your contract with nanny, make sure you ask for notice for nanny’s proposed holiday this
will allow you to find alternative childcare. Some employers ask for at least 4 weeks notice.
We would recommend you keep note of holiday taken paid or unpaid, just in case nanny
leaves part way through the year and has over taken on holiday. This way any unpaid or
over paid holiday can be paid/deducted in her final payslip.
If nanny works more than 5 days a week, their holiday entitlement is capped at 28 days. It is
not a problem if you agree more day’s holiday with nanny – this could be a condition of her
working for over a stated amount of time.
If nanny is part time, she is entitled to annual leave (28 days including bank holidays), but
pro-rated. So if nanny works 2 days a week, her holiday allowance is calculated:
2 days a week x 5.6 annual holiday allowance = 11.20 days holiday.
You must not round the holiday allowance down to 11, but can round it up to 11.5 days.
If nanny works different hours each week, you calculate her holiday pay by averaging her
last 12 weeks worked hours then multiply it by 5.6, this then gives you her holiday
entitlement in hours for the year and when she has a day’s holiday or was due to work on a
public holiday, whatever hours she was scheduled to work that day are then deducted from
her overall annual entitlement.

Spotlight on: interview no-nos

If you’re in the nanny interviewing nannies process as well as the questions you need to ask you should also familiarize yourself with the questions that you can’t ask. Nannies are also protected from discrimination by Equal Opportunities legislation and a good general rule of thumb is that if you wouldn’t expect to be asked about it at interview then you shouldn’t be asking your nanny either. Age, race, gender, sexual orientation and disability are all areas where you need to tread very carefully.

Common pitfalls are asking whether your nanny is married, whether they have or are planning to have children, whether they have any health problems and their nationality. To find out more check out our blog post “Questions not to ask at interview”.

The psychology of hiring a nanny

Hiring a nanny is a risky business. You’re working from CVs with a variety of qualifications and employment histories, and a three line personal statement which is telling you what you want to hear. Not only that but you’re choosing someone to take your place, in a high-pressure, unsupervised role with unrestricted access to your children. Mitigating risk, a natural human tendency, is going to play a big part in your decision making when choosing a nanny.

To do this you may place arbitrary limits – you want your nanny to be confident handling an emergency so you insist they have a first aid certificate (sensible), you want to know they are a reasonable and law abiding person so you ask for a DBS check (also sensible). You may have preconceived notions about certain academic backgrounds or hobbies, which again is you trying to reduce risk by avoiding the unknown. You may be put off by an unprofessional email address, or an overly-familiar voicemail message, because it calls that person’s judgement into question.

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Spotlight on qualifications

Although nannies do not have to be qualified, studying for a qualification shows commitment to a career in childcare and proves that a nanny has knowledge of good professional practice with a range of ages. There are many different qualifications that a nanny may have, and these are offered at different levels which correspond to the difficulty of the qualification, not the number of hours taken to achieve it. Here are the most common qualifications for nannies, including the new Early Years Educator courses which started this autumn. You can find more details on these and other qualifications on here.

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