Thinking about hiring a nanny this summer or when school starts in the fall? You are not alone.
Every month we speak with dozens of parents who are considering working with a nanny (this month alone, we spoke with over 150 families!). We have been compiling their most common questions over the past several months, and here is the first part of our series, “Top 10 Questions Answered About Working With A Nanny.”
Some of the questions we answer here are:
How is nanny care different than a child care center?
Is it difficult to find a nanny?
How long will my nanny search take?
How much does it cost to work with a nanny?
If you aren’t currently a member of our community, we’d love to have you join! Click here to sign up today!
Here are the top 10 questions we get from parents who are curious about working with a nanny.
With the COVID-19 pandemic, many parents faced a tough decision about how to handle child care. A lot of child care centers closed down, and many families had to figure out working from home and homeschooling all at once. As more adults have been vaccinated and it becomes safe to bring things back online, with parents returning to the office and schools opening back up, many families are once again weighing their childcare options. Through it all, nanny care remains a top choice.
As we have spoken with parents about what nanny care looks like, many are curious about the differences between working with a nanny and sending kids to a child care center. Here is what we tell them.
Question #1: How is nanny care different than a child care center?
Nanny care is going to be more expensive, but you are also going to be able to say exactly how that care happens.
You can choose your care provider and have them focus on things that are important to you that day. For example, if you are just coming out of three days of rain and you want your nanny to get your kiddo outside or maybe go see a new exhibit at the museum, you can have them do that. You can have them plan outings and activities, and get together on play dates. You can say how that care happens and get really individualized care when working with a nanny.
Aside from individualized care and paying top dollar, you might also get some help around the house. For example, they might help with the baby’s laundry, washing bottles, that sort of thing, of course, if you compensate appropriately. We’ll tackle that one down the road, as it will be one of our later questions. Daycares are a really great way to get your child to gain exposure to different cultures, different ways of thinking, and all sorts of people from different backgrounds. They can also be a potential for more germ exposure, and right now with COVID-19, everyone is trying to keep children healthy.
Care centers out there are doing a great job keeping everyone healthy. The potential for exposure is a little bit higher just because of sheer numbers at a care center. With nanny care, you are going to be able to control that bubble and keep it a little bit smaller. So nanny care remains a really popular option, though it is one of the more expensive options.
So those are a few of the differences between nanny care and care at a child care or daycare center.
Question #2: Is it difficult to find a nanny?
Right now, it is actually pretty difficult to find a nanny.
It’s not just in one city or one region, it’s a nationwide shortage of skilled workers, so it’s not just the nanny industry, it is across all industries.
The good news is that in recent weeks we have really seen things come up from the bottom, so we are definitely starting that upward momentum toward more care providers available and ready to work. More people are applying for positions and coming back online who are ready to fill those open nanny positions. Especially as we enter into the summer, we see a whole new wave of people becoming available to provide specifically summertime nanny care.
Question #3: How long should I allot for my nanny search?
As noted in question #2, right now it’s a little bit more of a difficult nanny market. Our baseline recommendation for nanny searches is two months.
That will give you a comfortable amount of time for your nanny search to go through the applicants, set up interviews, and really plan ahead. It will also give an adequate amount of time in case you don’t get applicants right off the get-go. You can tinker with the job description and maybe adjust your compensation package or offer something like a hiring bonus. Those are all great things to consider if you’re finding it’s a little bit difficult out there with your nanny search.
If you’re looking for something really specialized, such as a specific language, or maybe a specific skill set or personality type, you might want to consider giving yourself a little extra time. Maybe give yourself three months instead of two months for your nanny search. A lot of nannies plan ahead. They know when their contracts are ending and know looking down the road when they’re going to need to accept a new position. More time is always better than less time, so if you have that flexibility for additional lead time, go for it, take it and give yourself a nice comfortable nanny search.
Not everybody has the luxury of having several months for their nanny search for whatever reason. If you do have a month or less, we recommend reaching out for help with your nanny search, maybe handing it off to a professional. Nanny Parent Connection does offer a concierge nanny search service. With the concierge nanny search service, we do all of the leg work for parents so that you can sit back and relax. You interview applicants as we send them to you, and we take care of all the hard stuff. If you are interested in that option, you can learn more by clicking here. We would be happy to spend some time on the phone with you to learn a little bit more about your nanny needs and discuss how we might be able to help you with your nanny search. We do nationwide searches, so if you are not in the Seattle area, no problem, we’ve done searches all over the country.
Question #4: How much does it cost to work with a nanny?
The right answer is that it can vary, but if you’re in an urban area, those prices tend to trend along the same lines and they run very similar to the Seattle rates, which are kind of near the top of the market. Nanny Parent Connection does run annual pay raise surveys. Each year we reach out to care providers and families, and get all sorts of data. We ask about what people are paying or earning for care for one child versus two versus three. Is that care part-time? Is that care full-time? We get all of this data and we compile that into a really nice package and publish it so that it’s available to anyone. You can check that out if you’re in an urban area, the rates are going to be pretty along the lines of what we find is the going rate for Seattle.
If you’re in a more rural area or an area where nanny care is not that popular, you can probably figure on pricing that is slightly less than in urban areas. Of course, the exact rate you are going to pay your nanny is going to be dependent on the number of children they are caring for, how experienced your nanny is, and also the exact job duties. For example, if it’s just nanny care, anything surrounding the care of the children, maybe that might include baby laundry and washing bottles, etc. Those are going to be along the lines of just your regular nanny rates. But, if you are also wanting family laundry included or maybe dog walking, those are going to be more of your family assistant or household manager rates. We would take your regular nanny care rate and add $2 to $3 per hour on top of that for any additional job duties that are outside of the traditional nanny care.
We have also put together a really great blog post: the total cost of working with a nanny for a year, which can be a really awesome budgeting tool. It takes some hard numbers and gives examples, with comparisons, and it makes sure to include some things that people might not think of when they’re trying to budget for a nanny for the year. So for example, paying for backup care when your nanny is out sick or on vacation, maybe paying for a holiday bonus for your nanny, a birthday gift for your nanny, paying for mileage reimbursement or nanny taxes, etc. That can definitely add to the total cost of working with a nanny. Check out that blog by clicking here and use that clearly based budgeting tool to figure out how much working with a nanny might cost your family.
Question #5: Is a nanny an independent contractor?
The answer is an emphatic NO.
This has been decided by the IRS and there’s no debating this. You see this trying to be debated all the time by parents in some of the community groups, and it just is not up for debate. A nanny cannot be an independent contractor by definition. You as parents are telling the nanny how to do their job and what you want to be done and that sort of thing. Just by definition, a nanny is not an independent contractor; a nanny is a W-2 employee. They are an employee of your household. It sounds really lovely for a nanny to be classified as an independent contractor because then you are not responsible for those taxes, but it just can’t happen. It’s been decided for you, there is no debate, nannies are not independent contractors.
Check back soon, as we will be publishing Part 2 shortly!