Dear Marta:

I am leaving for vacation for three weeks. My housekeeper wants me to pay for the 3 weeks that she isn't needed in my home. Do I have to pay her for all the time I am away? Is there a way to avoid this?

Signed, On Vacation

Dear On Vacation:

One of the reasons it is important to have an employer/employee agreement from the beginning is to solve these kinds of issues before they become problems.

There is nothing written in the law that forces you to give vacation or pay for weeks that a person is not working. The only problem is that if you do not discuss this prior to the incident and get full agreement from your employee that they are willing to accept these conditions, what you might have is "mutiny on the bounty."

In truth, the fair thing for you to do is to find a way of creating work for your employee while you are away. You might consider one of those weeks as a vacation time for them that may be forthcoming but taken early.

The other two weeks, you might ask the employee to come in and complete a list of projects that you can never get to because there is never any extra time.
In addition, your employee could house sit, take in the mail, feed the animals, water the plants and overall check on the house.

However, if you simply do not want anyone in your home when you are away and your preference is not to pay the person when they are not working, then be sure to get this in writing beforehand so that there are no surprises and disgruntled employees.

Dear Marta:

I am a new mother and absolutely frightened about the
prospect of leaving my first-born child in the hands
of a person that virtually I hardly know. How do I
rid myself of this fear so that I can return to work
comfortably?

Response:

The most reassuring answer I can give you at this time
is that you are not alone. Every new mother has gone
through the same feelings of fear and concern and have
all managed to find excellent help for their child and
return to work unscathed. The first and most
important thing you must do to rid yourself of this
fear is to begin talking to other mothers who have
gone through these same emotions. Most of them will
tell you what I am about to impart. There is a
fabulous pool of child care providers out there who
sincerely love children and are competent in their
abilities. Many of these people will have more
experience than we do as new mothers. They are not
only qualified because of the years of time spent with
newborns, but because of the references they hold that
will happily recommend them. You must trust in the
fact that you will find the right child-care provider
to give you the confidence you need to walk out that
door. But to help you with this on a practical level,
follow these few steps:

1) Be sure to only interview people who have working
references with newborns.
2) Check all references yourself carefully.
3) Ask for letter of reference to support the verbal
references.
4) Do a complete criminal and background check on any
individual you consider viable.
5) Have the candidate work with you and your child for
a minimum of one week prior to offering the position.

Dear Marta:

I want to hire a nanny to work in my home on a full
time basis. This is the first time I have hired
anyone and do not know what the obligations I have as
an employer for providing vacation, holidays and sick
days.

Response:

In the household field, there is nothing written in
any law in the States that requires a household
employer to provide vacation, holidays and/or sick
days. However, having that said, if your neighbors
and others in your demographics normally provide such
things, then you would be making a mistake not to do
so. The reason for this is that for one, employees
will always talk, whether by the cooler or out by the
bus stop, they will convene and ask each other these
kinds of questions. If the majority of those working
in this field in your area are receiving all the major
holidays and one week's paid vacation along with 2
paid sick days per year, you had better think
carefully about providing your employee the same.
Otherwise, you will have a potential problem. In many
States, these benefits are being provided as stated -
and why not. You want to make your employee happy and
if nothing more it could offset a lower salary that
you cannot raise due to financial constraints.
Benefits and perks help make a job package attractive
and help keep an employee loyal.

Dear Marta:

My employee is slacking off in her duties. She is
very sensitive to criticism to the point that I am
almost afraid of telling her what she does wrong for
fear that she will get upset and walk out. How do I
delicately tell her that I am not happy with her
performance?

Response:

It is difficult to randomly talk to an employee about
every little thing that isn't being done right. If
you do this everyday, the employee gets frustrated and
begins to think that you are just picking on her/him.
However, there is a way to begin an employee on a
right foot and then establish review sessions so that
you always have a set time to discuss such matters.

When you begin with a new employee, you must be
careful to train this person properly so that the
individual knows exactly what is expected. Have a
list prepared of everything you want completed and go
over this list carefully. Have a training period for a
minimum of 1 to 2 weeks. During the first month of
employment, have a review session to make sure that
the things are getting done to your satisfaction.
Finally, maintain a regular review session on a
periodical basis (every 2 months or 6 months) so that
this becomes the time when you sit down with your
employee to cover the issues, problems, etc. This way,
you have established a regular set time for you and
your employee to correct any problems and it is
understood from the beginning that these sessions will
take place.

As far as you being fearful of telling someone what to
do - remember that as long as you are professional,
any employee should be open to taking direction. If
you begin a relationship in fear, you will always walk
on eggshells around this person and never be satisfied
with their performance. Remember: You are the
boss!!!!

Dear Marta:

I have just hired this lovely person as a
Nanny/Housekeeper. She has a wonderful disposition and
is great with my two school age boys. She works hard
and is very reliable and flexible. However, my dilemma
lies in that she is not a great housekeeper and always
seems to forget to do certain things that I have
repeated over and over to her. Both boys are in
school are home only in the afternoons with her. They
both like her very much and this is important to the
dynamics of our family. Most of the day is comprised
of house cleaning so I would have to say that the
position is more 70% cleaning and 30% childcare. So
what do I do? Should I fire her and get a person who
is a better cleaner and risk that this new person is
not as good with the boys, or should I keep her and
sacrifice the housekeeping skills I require?

Response:

This is a common occurrence in our field. It has been
my experience that when a person is particularly good
at being a "Nanny" the same person is usually not so
interested in cleaning and therefore does a lousy job
at it. On the other hand, a topnotch housekeeper is
rarely going to want to spend a lot of time with
children if she feels that the house needs attention.

The question here lies in what is most important to
you at this time. The 30% that your employee spends
with the boys seems to be of utmost importance because
the children rely on her to pick them up and spend
afternoons together. How this interaction takes place
and how she handles the boys on her own makes all the
difference in the world because if they aren't happy
and well cared for, you have a bigger issue. The
cleaning aspect of the job has a greater chance of
improvement with some training as long as the attitude
and willingness is present. On the other hand, it is
harder to create chemistry between a person and a
child. It takes more time and training to teach
childcare than it does to teach rudimentary cleaning.
When someone isn't good with kids, it is very obvious.
Children, in particular, pick up on this immediately
and are not easy to convince otherwise once they
decide that they simply do not "like the Nanny."

So let's first try to improve on the housekeeping
skills. Begin by making a list of everything you want
done in the house on a daily, weekly and monthly
basis. Go through each room with her carefully. Once
you have gone through the entire house and put a
household manual together for your employee, now you
can begin the training. Take a room at a time and
supervise your employee. Watch her as she works and
assist her to become more efficient and thorough by
correcting the way things are done. Have her take home
a copy of your Household Manual for her to study and
learn. After one week of training. Have her do it
herself and see if there is any improvement. The
likelihood is that you will see improvement right
away. If there are still things that don't seem to get
done or are not done properly, then put them on a list
each day for follow-up the day after. No matter how
good she is with the boys, her job remains as
Housekeeper/Nanny NOT Nanny/Light Housekeeper. Soon enough, you will not be so perplexed in your
decision-making because at least you will have given
her a fair chance to improve by providing all the
necessary tools to do so.

Dear Marta:

Between work and my social life, my schedule is very
busy. I need someone to help me at least 16 hours a
day. I would love to hire a live/in to cover at least
most of that time, but my husband refuses to have
someone in our home living with us. He demands
privacy. We have two small children under the age of
5 and my husband is out of the house working long
hours. I just can't do it on my own and require a long
day. How do I get someone to work a 16-hour day?

Response:

You are right! You do need a Live/In. Most parents
who have two small children under age 5 with a heavy
social and work schedule would be better off hiring a
live/in until at least one or both of the children
begin school. The fact that your husband does not
like to have an employee in the house 24 hours the day
is understandable. Many men feel this way about
live/in help. However, you will have to do some
campaigning on this one. Here are some advantages to
having live/in help:

1) The live/in is there to begin the day at any hour
you need her - so if one day you have to leave early
for work, you could have her start as early as 6 am.
2) You can get a long day out of a live/in up to 12
hours by providing all the necessary breaks (3 ½ hours
throughout the day). The advantage to this is that you
could establish a day that is 7am to 7pm and get your
early morning and early evening hours covered.
3) If you need babysitting in the evening, you have
the live/in available for that and only need to pay
her for the extra hours worked.
4) Any spontaneous social event or late workday is
covered without worrying about a person needing to
leave because she normally works a live/out schedule.

If you still can't convince him, then this is how you
will need to design your work schedule for in home
help.

1) Hire a person to work the early morning shift for 8
hours. Have this person help you get the children up,
dressed, and ready for pre-school (if applicable).
This person should drive and have a car (unless you
have a vehicle available).
2) Hire a second person to work the afternoons to
early evening so that you have 16 hours covered with 2
individuals.

It will be expensive, but there are no two ways around
it. You will never find a person who wants to work 16
hours live/out - nor should you consider hiring anyone
on that basis. You will burn out any person who does
this.

Dear Marta:

My nanny has become part of our family. We love her
dearly. However, there is one slight problem. From
the time she has been with us she has shared her
personal life with us and we have always been very
good listeners. She has some issues with her family
and her boyfriend that are always troubling her. When
we first employed her, she opened up and shared a lot
of the problems with me. Now, the discussions seem to
be getting longer and longer and interfering with her
work with us. How do I tell her that I can no longer
be her therapist and need her to concentrate on her
work and the job at hand?

Response:

Crossing boundaries is something that we often do in a
household setting. Perhaps because it is your home
and a more relaxed environment, you tend to think that
sitting in the kitchen and chatting over a cup of
coffee is appropriate. The problem with this is that
once you open Pandora's box, you will have a very hard
time, shutting it. While it is a good idea to learn a
little bit about your employee's personal life so that
you are aware of any red flags that you need to know
about, it is always best to maintain a professional
relationship without a lot of personal chit chat.
Neither of you are there to serve as each other's
therapist. This is a working relationship, not a
friendship. Although, it may evolve into a friendly
working relationship, both parties should always
understand the boundaries and parameters of the
employer and employee.

So what exactly should you do to indicate to the
employee that you do not have the time nor desire to
sit and listen to her problems? Best to listen for a
moment so that you do not appear to be rude, but then
explain that you are very busy now and need to do
something (other than listen to her). If sensitive
and intelligent, she should get the message and
understand that you as the employer do not want to be
her sounding board. She has friends and family to do
that for her. Now, if your nanny is going through
something major that requires some sincere attention
and assistance on your behalf that is completely
different. Of course, you want to lend a hand. My
point is that you do not want an employee to get into
the habit of sharing every detail of her personal life
to you. She is there to work with your children and
be a professional Nanny. As her employer, it is your
responsibility to set the parameters.