Our recommended partners at www.PayrollForNannies.co.uk provide payroll advice for parents and have created this content.
All nannies are entitled to receive a contract of employment within 2 calendar months of their start date. It should contain the Terms and Conditions of employment, including the following:
Continue reading “Contract of Employment Advice for Nannies and Parents”
Our recommended partners at www.PayrollForNannies.co.uk provide payroll advice for parents, and have created this content.
If a parent was to make nanny redundant the nanny would be entitled to redundancy pay after 2 years of complete service. The parent should have at least one meeting with the nanny to discuss redundancy and if there are any alternative roles – part-time nanny/housekeeper or going from live-in nanny to live-out. A 4-week trial period at the alternative role must be offered. A nanny can tell the parent that the job is not suitable within these 4-weeks, and this will not affect the nanny’s right to statutory redundancy.
If a nanny unreasonably turns down a suitable alternative to the current job, they may lose the right to statutory redundancy.
If redundancy is the only option, a parent must give the correct notice period and pay: Continue reading “Redundancy Advice for Parents & Nannies”
Our recommended partners at www.PayrollForNannies.co.uk provide payroll advice for parents and have created this content.
It is important to remember the contributions for automatic enrolment for pensions.
Continue reading “Auto-Enrolment Guidance for Parents and Nannies”
Our recommended partners at www.PayrollForNannies.co.uk provide payroll advice for parents and have created this content.
Calling all nannies and parents who employ nannies, do you know how the national minimum wage affects you? Keep reading to find out.
Continue reading “How Does the National Minimum Wage Apply to Nannies?”
We asked a childcarer with over 20 years’ experience working with children to share some of her best advice and top tips for new nannies and parents.
Do you dream of finding a nanny who will stay with your family for years to come, helping to raise all of your children?
We’ve put together our top tips to help you encourage your nanny to stay with your family long-term.
When looking for your next nanny job, it’s important to thoroughly read through the nanny job listing and to be on the lookout for any warning signs that could spell trouble in the future.
The first step is to remember that not everyone knows exactly what a nanny is or what duties fall under the job title. First-time parents, especially can be slightly confused about what they can and can’t ask a nanny to do and so it’s important that you take the time to read through each listing and note down any questions that need clarifying by the employer during the interview or before-hand over the phone.
Top Tip: If possible, try to contact the employer over the phone as this will give you a better feel for who they are and what they want than communicating via email. It’s also a great way to make yourself stand out from the competition as they’ll be able to start getting to know you before you even set foot in the interview.
To help you identify the good listings from the bad, we’ve made a list of the most important red-flags that you should lookout for in a nanny job listing and interview.
Continue reading “What Should You Watch Out for in Nanny Job Listings?”
It’s the time of year when parents are doing their first payroll run with a new nanny and if your initial sums were out it can be an unpleasant experience discovering that you’ve got a higher bill than you thought you had.
Problem #1 Nanny has another job
Even if it’s a Saturday job, if she had that job first she’ll be on a BR tax code with you, which means no tax free allowance and all earnings taxed at 20%. It used to be possible to split tax codes but HMRC are very reluctant to do that since real time information (RTI) was introduced. If you agreed a net salary then you are liable for all the tax and National Insurance contributions, which can be a lot more than you bargained for.
Problem #2 Nanny has a student loan
Student loan repayments kick in above £325/week (£1,409/month or £16,910/year) gross. 9% of the amount above this salary needs to be paid to the Student Loans Company on the nanny’s behalf, and you’re also liable for this if you agreed a net salary, which if a nanny is earning £2,250 a month is an extra £75. Nannies with degrees are becoming increasingly common, and most of those who have studied in the UK will have taken out a student loan. An even nastier surprise is where you think you’ve employed a nanny and are paying under the repayment threshold but overtime has pushed them over.
Problem #3 Nanny has a special code
HMRC allocate codes based on an individual’s situation. Most people with one job will have a standard tax code (for 2014 this is 1000L), however if a nanny has to pay back tax which was underpaid in previous years or receives benefits in kind they may have a special tax code which reduces their personal allowance (for example 700L which means they have a personal tax allowance of only £7,000 for the year), increasing your tax liability if you have agreed upon a net salary.
The simplest way to avoid any nasty surprises your end is to agree a gross salary in the contract. That way you know what your costs are, and you deduct the amount of tax (and anything else) your nanny is required to pay rather than adding to your bill.
This post is designed to help nannies understand contracts. You can find a post aimed at parents here!
Why do I need a contract with my nanny family?
A contract or some form of written statement is a legal requirement within 2 months of starting a job. It’s also protection for you because it means the terms of your employment are agreed and written down, and your nanny insurance may need you to have a contract in place before it will cover you.
What goes in my nanny contract?
As a minimum:
Your name and your employers’
Place of work
Start date (and end date, if a fixed term position such as covering another nanny’s maternity leave)
Job title
Weekly working hours
Details of the salary – including when and how often you will be paid
Details of the holiday entitlement
Details of the sick leave entitlement
Details of the pension (it’s a good idea to list arrangements for the future if your employers have their staging date)
Notice period
Probation/trial period (if there is one)
Information on disciplinary procedures
Details of sackable offences
Many nanny contracts also include:
Job description and duties, benefits, details of live in accommodation (if applicable), arrangements for using your car and mileage payments (if applicable) and a confidentiality clause.
Where do I get a contract?
It’s your employer’s job to provide you with your nanny job contract. If they are using a payroll company or an agency they may have a template provided. If not, you can show them the example contracts from the nannyjob.co.uk site.
Standard holiday entitlement in the UK is 5.6 weeks, which include all Bank Holiday, pro rata for part time workers. But what does this mean? When does it start? What if you work part time or varying days or reduced hours for part of the year or term time only?
If you work full time you will get 4 weeks holiday and the 8 ordinary Bank Holidays (New Year’s Day or the following Monday, Good Friday, Easter Monday, the early May Bank Holiday, the Spring Bank Holiday, the August Bank Holiday, Christmas Day or the following Monday and Boxing Day or the following Monday or Tuesday). This give you a total of 28 days holiday.
To calculate your holiday entitlement for part time work, where you work the same days and hours each week you simply divide those 28 days by 5 to get a figure for 1 day per week and multiply by the number of days you work – so for 3 days it would be (28 days / 5 x 3 days)
1 day = 5.6 days or 1.12 weeks
2 days = 11.2 days or 2.24 weeks
3 days = 16.8 or 3.36 weeks
4 days = 22.4 or 4.48 weeks
Holdiay can be rounded up, but not down.
If you work term time only then you can use a similar calculation substituting weeks for days. In this example we’ll assume that there are 39 school weeks, so you get 4.2 weeks holiday (5.6 weeks / 52 x 39 weeks). If you have to take your holiday outside of term time then you may have an arrangement that you are paid in lieu of holiday. Alternatively you may be employed for 44 weeks of the year to allow for the holiday to be taken during your period of employment.
If you work different hours on different days but still work a fixed number of days per week you may find it more useful to calculate your holiday in terms of hours. For example Monday and Tuesday are 10 hour days but Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are 5 hour days. Taking 5 Mondays off would give double the amount of time not worked but still use the same amount of holiday. To calculate holiday in hours just add up the number of hours over a week, in this case 35, and multiply that by the number of weeks holiday entitlement, in this case 5.6, giving 196 hours (35 x 5.6).
The same principle applies if you work part-time in term time and full time in school holidays. In this case you need to calculate the number of hours worked over a year, for example 4 hours per day, 5 days per week for 39 weeks per year ( 4 x 5 x 39,) which is 780 hours, and 10 hours per day, 5 days per week for 13 weeks per year (10 x 5 x 13), which is 650 hours, giving a total of 1430 hours per year. This is then divided ny 52 to get the average weekly hours (1430 / 52) which is 27.5 hours and mulitplied by the weekly allowance for a full week, 5.6, to give 154 hours holiday a year. That means 15.4 days if taken in school holidays or 38.5 days if taken in term time – quite a difference!
If you work varying hours and can’ establish a weekly average then it may be best to calculate holiday using the accrual method, so for every hour you work you earn 12.07% of an hour as holiday.
Holiday is distributed according to a leave year. This is usually specified in the contract, and many run from 1st January to 31st December, with a pro rata allowance for the first and final years. That means if you leave a job after working 10 weeks you will get 1.1 weeks holiday (5.6 weeks / 52 x 10 weeks).
We hope this helps you to make sense of your holiday entitlement, and remember you can always post on our messageboards to get advice from other nannies specific to you.
