Nanny Share - what's on the nanny's mind

Making a nanny share work for your nanny

What parents usually want from nanny share is a bit more social interaction for their baby or toddler, and also to save on their nanny’s costs.

But what’s the nanny’s perspective likely to be?

There’s a good chance the nanny will think it’s a brilliant idea. In a recent big survey of London nannies, almost half said they would be interested in working in a nanny share.

That’s mostly because nannies get paid more per hour for working in a nanny share.  In fact, doing a nanny share is the single best form of career progression for nannies, dwarfing the impact of getting a qualification, or more experience, or registering with an agency or Ofsted.  Many nannies also prefer to have more than one child to look after at a time.

It’s not all about the wages, though. When considering whether to work in a nanny share, there are often three questions on nannies’ minds:

How will the holiday work?

In a sole situation, nannies typically choose two weeks’ holiday a year and parents choose the other two weeks. Some nannies are unsure how holiday works in a share situation and worry they might lose this ability to choose

Solution: 

The nanny isn’t affected – she still gets to choose two weeks of her holiday. Each family chooses one other week, making four weeks in total.

Will I get muddled up with the taxes?

  • Nanny share tax administration is complicated. This isn’t the nanny’s problem really, but in practice parents often end up asking the nanny for advice, as nanny tax can be a bit strange, and nannies often understand it better than parents. So nannies can sometimes worry they’ll be landed with complicated tax questions.

Solution:

Assuming you’re doing a Koru Kids share, reassure the nanny that we do all the tax admin and answer any questions from either the parents or the nanny.

Will I get caught in the middle?

Some nannies worry they’ll get caught in the middle of two sets of parents who want different things. If you’ve ever had two bosses, you’ll know how hard this can be.

Solution:

Reassure the nanny you’ll communicate well with the other family, and that you won’t ask for contradictory things.  We find that the most successful nanny shares are the ones where the parents let the nanny get on with her job, using her professional judgement. If you let your nanny know this is your plan, you’ll be in good shape.

As you can see, none of these things needs to be a big deal.

When a parent who already employs a nanny gets in touch with us about looking for a nanny share, we always want to speak to the nanny if at all possible. That’s so that we can understand any preferences the nanny has, or any questions. This saves time in the long run and makes sure the nanny is 100% on board. Once the nanny’s questions have been answered, and preferences taken into account in the search, they’re usually highly enthusiastic about starting the share.    

If you'd like to talk to us about finding a nanny share family to share your nanny you can get in touch here.

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