Posts filed under ‘Employing A Nanny’
You have spent time and money recruiting a nanny to care for your children so the last thing you want is for your nanny to leave after a couple of months.
Mind Reading
The first thing to realise, which may well seem obvious, is that your nanny is not a mind reader. Unless you tell your nanny what you want them to do and things you don’t want them ever doing, your nanny won’t know about those things. It may be obvious to you that the children never use the white towels, they always use the green towels but unless you have told your nanny that, it may not be obvious to your nanny.
A nanny once wrote the following on an internet forum:
parents always expect you to know what they are thinking preferably before they are actually thinking it!
Another nanny wrote:
to magically know for example that the Halloween decorations are supposed to be put up on October 1st without anyone telling you.
I am sure many nannies can think of examples of times when their boss has assumed that nanny knew something, when in fact the nanny had not been told about it. So as a great employer you need to keep in mind that if you think about something, that is not the same as telling your nanny about it. Your nanny should also avoid you having to read their mind by letting you know about an important outing/activity they are planning for your children, or that the last two eggs are needed as Master T wants to make cakes in the morning.
Use A Calendar
How do you currently tell your nanny about important and not important upcoming events which directly affect your children, your nanny, or you / your partner? These days we all have mobile phones which have a calendar function on them and we have access to the internet where we can create shared calendars where any authorised user can add events. Use those tools – such as Google Calendar – to keep track of important and even not so important events.
A calendar can be a useful way of reminding people about routine tasks – such as when to change the children’s bedding, the order cut off time for the shopping delivery.
The more children there are in your family, the more a calendar may have events on it which are for specific children, all the children, or a subset of the children. Some calendars will let you colour code events, so each child could be assigned a colour so at a quick glance at the upcoming week’s calendar, events for each child can be quickly identified.
Make Time To Talk
There will be times when you need to have a chat with your nanny about important things coming up which will affect their work. For example, you may be considering changing job which may result in your nanny working different hours. You may be in the early stages of making the move to change job and thus you don’t know the details at this time but still tell your nanny about it. If you give your nanny some information, you are helping to prepare them for the main event. Then when you know the new working schedule it will not come as a complete shock to your nanny.
Having a new baby can be a tricky time for you, your children and your nanny. Everyone needs to work together to make your time on maternity leave go smoothly and for the new child to bond with their siblings and also your nanny. Your nanny may be worried about their job security, with you going on maternity leave, your nanny may worry about your need to have a nanny. You may be thinking about how nice it will be to be off on maternity leave and have someone else to care for your children, keep up with the mountain of laundry. Remember that your nanny can not read your mind, so talk with your nanny, keep them informed about any up coming changes.
You do not need to plan a time and place to have a long chat with your nanny. It can sometimes be useful to have a long chat about something, it may even be a contract review or a discussion about how your nanny handled an incident which you are not happy about (or is it just that you would have done things differently?). Short chats can take place at various times, maybe at breakfast when it may be good time to remind your nanny about any up coming events that day or the following few days.
Also talk to your nanny about their life, ask them about their family and how things are going. Your nanny may not tell you much but once they know you well you may well get to hear about your nannies family members and if you have kept an open line of communication between you, should a family member of theirs fall seriously ill, you may know about that sooner than when the nanny says that they have to go and see their family member as they may not survive the week.
Communication is key. Find methods of communication that work for you and your nanny. Use technology to assist – internet based shared calendars which can have repeating events and which can be viewed using mobile devices can be a great help in every family member knowing about key events that are coming up.
May 28, 2012 at 11:02 pm
As a live-out nanny I have a 8 mile commute to work, then the same 8 miles back home again. This journey takes me around 15 to 20 minutes depending on traffic.
In a previous nanny job I have had a 15 mile commute to get to work which would take typically 30 to 40 minutes, sometimes longer getting home as the job finished at peak traffic time.
In another nanny job I worked 3.5 miles (by road distance) away from home, which took an average of 10 minutes to drive.
Why am I telling you all this about how far I have travelled to work? Well when looking for a live-out nanny, I feel that parents will be wanting a nanny who is not having a long commute.
There are several factors that should be considered:
- How far the nanny is driving to/from work – distance by road.
- If the nanny is not driving – then how are they getting to work and how far are they travelling?
- How long the journey typically takes.
- How much that journey costs.
Nannies I feel need to consider the cost implications of travelling to/from their home to their place of work. I have been tracking the cost of fuel for my car since 2008, when it was a typical cost of 9.5p per mile. Fuel costs are on the increase and even a small car like mine now costs 14p per mile in fuel. Whilst the rise in fuel cost from 2008 to 2012 has only been 4.5p per mile in my case, the further you travel to/from work, the more you will notice the increase in cost.
I read on Mumsnet recently about a nanny who had a 50 mile commute to/from work. That’s 50 miles, each way. The discussion on Mumsnet was started because the nanny had resigned from the job after just a few weeks, due to the distance they were travelling to/from work. It may not have been the only reason why the nanny resigned but it was a factor. Before agreeing to work for a family, nannies I feel should consider how far they will be travelling to work. Parents also need to consider if they are happy with how far away a nanny lives.
There can be no general guide to how far it is reasonable for a live-out nanny to travel to work, as it will vary depending on the location. In some areas even a short journey can take a long time, such as in cities along heavy traffic routes, whilst in other areas the same distance can be covered much quicker. When applying for a nanny job, I feel nannies need to consider how far they will be travelling to work and the route they would take.
May 23, 2012 at 7:00 pm
Yes it’s that time of year again when employers give their employees a P60. For those of you who are not in the UK, this won’t apply as you will have your own tax rules but for employers of nannies in the UK preparing the P60 End of Year Certificate is one of the payroll tasks that must be done before the end of May.
Your payroll agency will be able to prepare the P60 for you, or if doing payroll admin yourself, take a look at the End of Year Checklist. HMRC online filing service, or PAYE Basic Tools will prepare the P60 for you if you have used the P11 Calculator.
Nannies: Do Not Destroy Your P60.
The P60 is a vital document to keep as it gives details of your earnings during the tax year.
Nannies – did you notice a change to your April payslip? Whilst my salary remained the same, my take home pay (Net Pay) changed… it went up a little. Did your’s do that?
If you have a Net Pay Agreement you will not have seen a change in your pay but may have noticed that the amount of income tax deducted has changed.
Personal tax allowance changed in April. This year it increased meaning that more of your income was free of tax. Thus if your gross salary remained the same, you got more take home pay, as you paid less tax. For more about why nannies should agree a Gross salary, take a look at the Lets Talk Gross campaign.
May 13, 2012 at 5:06 pm
Q. How Much Does A 3 Day Per Week Nanny Cost?
A. Outside of a major city, I feel cost would typically be as follows:
Working Hours: 8am-6pm
Nannies Gross Salary: £10 Gross per hour
If you are city based, then you could easily be adding another 20%, especially if in London.
This I feel is a reasonable amount to assume for the nannies salary during 2012. The actual salary may well vary between applicants and on the level of experience you wish someone to have. Market forces have an affect and at the moment there are a lot of people looking for jobs, thus the salary level I am suggesting is a little lower than it was last year. Decide how much YOU feel you are able to pay the nanny. If you are not in a position to offer £10 Gross per hour then you can advertise at a lower rate and see who applies. You must comply with National Minimum Wage legislation… in the UK, National Minimum Wage for someone aged 21+ is currently £6.08 per hour and rises to £6.19 per hour from October 2012.
If it is the nannies first job, such as moving on from working in a nursery or having left college, then you may find they will accept a lower salary. This is I feel in part due to the nurseries not paying staff that well (typically in my area a full-time nursery nurse is paid around £14,000 per year for a 40 hour week). So you may find they would accept around £7 gross per hour initially, then expect more as they gain experience of working sole charge.
The Calculations for a nanny, 3 Days a Week:
Nannies Salary: £10 Gross per hour
Number of hours per week: 30
Nannies Salary per Week: £300 Gross – £15,643 Gross per Year
Employers National Insurance: £ 1127 2012/13 tax year (calculation by MrAnchovy’s PAYE Calculator 2012/13 )
Nanny Payroll: You can do this yourself or you can get a lot of a assistance from a Nanny Payroll Company such as PAYEforNannies who my employer has been successfully using for many years now. The cost of having a payroll company is around £115 a year. The payroll company will produce payslips and tell you when and how much to transfer to HMRC in terms of the deductions (Employee Tax, Employee NI) as well as your Employers NI.
Weekly Expenses Kitty (for activities/outings): £5 per day, you may find the cost increases during school holidays. The more children you have the higher the activity cost may need to be – perhaps consider £2.50 per day, per child. Based on a 48 week working year, nanny working 3 days per week, £5 x 48 weeks x 3 days= £720 total.
Nannies Travelling Costs Whilst On Duty: If your nanny uses their own car, then employers would usually reimburse the cost at £0.45 per mile (this is known as theApproved Mileage Rate). Employers can negotiate with their employee to pay less than this, though you should take into account your nannies costs of providing a car, car seats, suitable motor insurance to include transporting children for whom they care (this can be arranged through Morton Michel and other insurance brokers)
How many miles your nanny would do will vary. Consider the usual mileage they would do to take children to school and back, to get to toddler group, other outings. I would say that I do an average of 3000 miles a year (nannying 4 days per week in a semi-rural location). Start recording the mileage you do in your car during the week, you may be quite surprised how quickly the mileage adds up even if you are just going to the local shops, library, playground, woods, PYO farm etc.
For a 3 day per week nanny I suggest factoring in at least 75 miles a week… so £33.75 per week, £1620 per year (48 weeks).
While your nanny is on duty, you give them food and drink. Nannies don’t really get a lunch hour, can’t leave your children home alone. So food is seen as a sort of perk in compensation for working without a break. How much does that add to your weekly food budget… I’m not sure. Nanny will eat with the children, so eat the same thing. If nanny wants something different, I feel nanny should be buying that themselves. So increase in food bill, extra £3 a day maybe? Heating/Light will also be used more as nanny is around during some of the day, so another few pounds. If comparing with a childminder/nursery, lights wouldn’t be on at your home, heating may also be set low. If comparing with you staying at home, then there won’t really be much of a difference at all. There is also some additional wear and tear on the property. Shall we lump all these types of cost together… say £8 per working day. Suppose you could include cost of Employers Insurance in that (it is usually part of your home contents cover, check your policy). So 3 days x £8 = £24. 48 weeks x £24 = £1152
Total Cost of Employing a Nanny For Three Days Per Week
£15,643 gross salary, Employers NI £1127, Nanny Payroll £115, Activity Kitty £720, Mileage £1620, Food/Drink/Heat/Light/Misc. £1152
Grand Total: £20,377
The total cost of employing a nanny for 3 days a week will vary depending on your situation. I hope the calculations above help you consider many of the costs involved.
April 17, 2012 at 4:33 pm
Nannies typically work for one family at a time, so have only one employer. Some nannies may work for two families at the same time (a nannyshare) or two different families on different days of the week (two separate nanny jobs). A nanny therefore has one, or maybe two employers.
In many occupations there is an expectation that people do CPD – Continuing Professional Development. Ongoing training to enable them to keep up with latest developments and to renew existing skills.
Nannies are no different in this respect, as over time there can be changes to knowledge about child development, ways to help children learn, spotting when children may need extra help, changes to child protection procedures and renewing training in Paediatric First Aid.
Paediatric First Aid is probably the most common thing that nannies know needs repeated training. In the UK a First Aid certificate is valid for 3 years, at which point a refresher course needs to be done.
If a nanny in England is registered with Ofsted, then the childcare regulator requires that First Aid training is repeated every 3 years and that a valid certificate is held at all times that childcare is provided. Therefore a nanny may well repeat First Aid training every 2.5 years or so, depending on when they can attend a training course prior to expiry of their existing first aid certificate.
First Aid training in the UK can be quite costly. In my area (Surrey) a Paediatric First Aid course which includes practical exercise is 12 hours long and costs around £95+VAT. Registered Childminders have to do that long a course, nannies however can do a shorter course as long as it meets the criteria for registration – which can be found in Appendix A of Ofsted Guide to Registration.
Who should pay for this training?
In other jobs, training may be provided as part of the job. Nannying is different and some parents may well contribute towards ongoing training, whilst others will not. I feel that nannies need to consider what they need to be doing to make themselves employable. If a nanny does not update their training then when they next apply for a job, will their new employer consider them for the job? Or would a new employer consider someone who already had the training?
As a nanny I pay for all my own training, I do not expect my employer to pay that cost in addition to my salary. Maybe I am wrong to think that it is my responsibility to keep updated with latest developments, but I feel that if I were to ask my employer to pay for training costs, they may well decide to not offer any pay rise in future. I also feel it is unfair on them to have this added cost which they will not have allocated any budget. Not all employers of nannies are rich with multi-million pound homes. Many employers of nannies are just parents trying to make ends meet, working long hours and doing quite highly paid jobs but also having quite high mortgages and outgoings.
What do you think – who should pay for training?
April 13, 2012 at 10:24 am
How much travel your nanny has done during the past financial year is probably something you are currently calculating if you employ a nanny in the UK as it is now the end of the financial year.
Some nannies may do very little travel as part of their job, whilst others may do quite a lot of travel. It is therefore hard to generalise about how much travel a nanny would be doing as part of their job.
Personally I have done just shy of 3000 miles of work travel using my own car this past financial year. This figure may shock some of you, whilst for others it may not come as a surprise. The first 10,000 miles of business travel is what HMRC are concerned about, as that is where the limit is imposed with regard to the Approved Mileage Rate. After 10,000 miles the rate drops and thus if an employer pays over that rate the payments are subject to taxation.
If you are considering having a nanny, then start to track the mileage you do on an every day basis so you get a feel for what your nannies mileage might be. For example, if you drive to pre-school, then record the mileage of that round-trip. Do you drive to toddler group? How about popping to the shops for some last minute things? A trip to a castle, a museum, to a playground. Even the short trips can all add up, so get a feel for what sort of mileage your nanny might be doing by tracking the mileage you do each day.
April 6, 2012 at 7:04 pm
It is now the end of the 2011/12 Tax Year ( 6th April 2011 to 5th April 2012) and employers of nannies now need to complete the HM Revenue & Customs P35 Employer Annual Return, which is due the 19th May.
Parents who use a nanny payroll service to help operate PAYE should have been asked by their payroll service to provide some details which the payroll service will use to complete the P35 for you.
The questions that are asked are things like:
Have you employed anyone other than your existing nanny during the financial year?
Have you paid the nanny any money other than mileage payment, that has not appeared on a payslip?
Have you provided your nanny with any benefits because of their job? I suppose by that they mean things like providing accommodation, gym membership, a car for the nannies own use.
Mileage Payments
Nannies can be paid up to 45p per mile for the first 10,000 miles they do in their job, such as transporting children to/from activities. You need to tell your payroll provider how many miles your nanny has done April 6th 2011 to April 5th 2012 and the rate you have paid. If you have provided money for fuel instead, or for train/bus tickets then tell your payroll provider about that.
The P35 also needs information about Statutory payments made to your employee such as Statutory Sick Pay (SSP), Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP).
If you are not using a nanny payroll company or an accountant to help you operate PAYE, then you may find the E10 Helpsheet useful for how to complete the P35 Employer Annual Return.
April 5, 2012 at 7:52 am
Looking at the BBC News – Budget 2012: What’s in it for you? question and answer article, there are some things that will affect nannies and those employing a nanny in the UK.
Income tax personal allowance will rise again
Personal tax allowance is already increasing in April 2012. It has been announced in The Budget that it will rise by £1,100 in April 2013 which means the allowance will increase to £9,205 for 2013/14 tax year.
What does this mean for nannies?
For several years now I have been posting on various internet forums about how it is a bad idea for a nanny to agree a take home pay salary (Net salary). Nannies who have taken on my advice will be on an agreed Gross salary.
Using a PAYE Calculator, you can have a play with figures… if say a nanny was paid £1800 Gross per month, for a 40 hour week, in 2011/12 tax year (assuming tax code 747L – representing personal tax allowance of £7470) net pay is £1421. In 2012/13 tax year, if the same Gross salary of £1800, with the new tax code of 810L, representing personal tax allowance of £8100, then take home would be £1435, a rise of £14 per month.
So an increase in personal tax allowance means that a nanny who has agreed a Gross salary, gets more money in their pocket. It may not sound like a lot of money, but £14 a month is £168 a year which would easily pay your nanny public liability insurance bill.
Is child benefit being cut?
Yes there are changes to Child Benefit. Where one person in the household earns more than £50,000 a year, child benefit will begin to be withdrawn. Where one person in the household earns more than £60,000 a year then child benefit is withdrawn. The change comes into affect from April 2013. So if parents have 3 children and either parent earns £60,000 or more, then the family will lose £2,500 of Child Benefit they were previously getting. More in this article from The Independent and from NurseryWorld.
March 21, 2012 at 6:08 pm
This weekend I attended a nanny seminar organised by my local authority Early Years & Childcare Service. One of the topics that generated a lot of discussion was regarding the title Home Childcarer.
In the UK, Government has decided to refer to nannies as home child-carers. This can be seen most clearly I feel in legislation. The Childcare (General Childcare Register) Regulations 2008 says within the explanatory note section, Different requirements apply in respect of childminders, nannies (referred to in these Regulations as “home child-carers”) and other providers of childcare.
In the same document there is a definition for Home Child-carer.
“home child-carer” means an individual who provides early years childminding or later years childminding—
(a) for a child or children for particular parents, wholly or mainly in the home of the parents, or
(b) for a child or children for particular parents (“the first parents”) and, in addition, for a child or children for different parents (“the second parents”), wholly or mainly in the home of the first parents or the second parents or in both homes;
So from that you can see that nannies are home child-carers as far as the law is concerned. This is why Ofsted, the childcare regulator in England, uses the wording Home Childcarer in documents like the Guide to Registration on the Childcare Register. In that document, Ofsted have the following in their “What do we mean by… ?” section:
Home childcarers
A person aged 18 or over who cares for the children aged birth to 17 years of no more than two families at any one time at the home of one of the children. This includes nannies.
For many, many years people providing childcare in the home of the child have been called Nannies. How the name Nanny came about I am not sure – don’t suppose anyone knows the history of that? For some reason when the law was drafted the powers at be must have felt they could not use the word nanny or nannies. So they created a new name, for legal purposes.
So what does this mean for nannies? Are we now all called Home Childcarers? Well, yes in a way we are but the general consensus at the meeting I attended was that nannies don’t want to be called Home Childcarers. Are you a nanny in the UK? Do you want to be called a Home Childcarer?
My local authority (Surrey) is calling nannies and childminders, Home-based Childcarers. So even more confusing in my view – surely Childminders are Childminders and Nannies are Nannies. Could they not keep the names that everyone is familiar with?
Parents… when you are looking for a nanny, would you be thinking – oh I need a Home Childcarer – or would you really be thinking that you want to employ a nanny?
Please do let me know your views… do nannies want to be called Home Childcarers? Do parents know what a Home Childcarer is and advertise jobs as that? Or should we will be known as Nannies?
March 19, 2012 at 7:14 pm
When you employ a nanny in the UK you need to deduct from the nannies pay Employee Income Tax and Employee National Insurance (NI). As the employer you also have to pay HMRC a tax called Employers National Insurance.
If you are considering employing a nanny it can be useful to get a feel for what these costs are likely to be over the next financial year. 2012/13 financial year starts in April 2012 and PAYE Calculators have been updated to include calculation of the new tax and NI amounts. These calculators should not be used for day-to-day payroll, as for that you should follow the procedure set out by HMRC but the tax/ni calculators do give very good figures for what you are likely to pay.
My preferred tax and NI calculator was written by an accountant towards the end of 2009. That accountant posts on various internet forums including Mumsnet and thus uses his forum username as it’s title: MrAnchovy’s PAYE Calculator 2o12/13
MrAnchovy’s PAYE Calculator is my preferred nanny tax and NI calculator due to it’s ability to do Gross to Net and Net to Gross calculations. It also has a simple to use interface, though it does need to be used on a modern browser and does not support usage on a mobile browser.
MrAnchoy's PAYE Calculator
The tax calculator is just a single webpage which has different coloured boxes. You enter in details in Blue boxes and click the calculate button and the page will update to show the values in the Grey and White boxes. It enables you to specify: Tax Code, Days worked per week, Hours worked per week, if the nanny has a student loan, either the Gross or Net hourly/weekly/monthly/annual salary.
The tax calculator will start with some defaults… tax code of 810L for example, which is a typical single person’s tax code for 2012/13 financial year. Your nanny however may not have this tax code, so until you know your nannies tax code (this is established via a P45 or P46, plus coding notices from HMRC) it is wise to run the calculator twice… once with 810L and once with code BR. BR is the code used to not allocate any personal tax allowance to the job… thus all income is taxed. That will most likely be the situation if your nanny is part time and already has another job, as their primary job would be using their personal tax allowance.
Another PAYE Calculator is ListenToTaxman which I used before I heard about MrAnchovy’s tax and NI calculator.
Take a look and see which nanny tax calculator you prefer.
For more information about income tax and national insurance and employers obligation to operate PAYE, see the PAYE section of the HMRC website.
There are nanny payroll companies that can help you with producing payslips for your nanny and telling you when and how much to pay to HMRC. My own payslips for over 3 years have been produced by PAYEforNannies, so do take a look at that company.
March 7, 2012 at 8:55 am
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