Should I Offer My Nanny Paid Holidays?

Hi everyone. Laura from Nanny Parent Connection here.

Many parents are confused (or just don’t know) about the nanny industry standard for paid holidays. Should you expect to pay your nanny for federal holidays? Which federal holidays should your nanny be paid for? How does this affect overtime?

I’ve got you covered 🙂 Check out my latest video where we discuss everything you need to know about paid holidays.

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A transcript of the video can be found below: 

Hi everyone, Laura from Nanny Parent Connection here.

Today’s topic: Should I offer my nanny paid federal holidays?

A lot of families just aren’t sure if they should offer their nannies paid holidays.

Offering paid holidays is considered part of a nanny industry-standard compensation package.

You can work out the details of the exact number of paid holidays in the job offer phase or when you are finalizing the contract with your nanny.

You should absolutely be offering your nanny paid federal holidays, even part-time nannies are looking for paid holidays in their compensation package.

If your nanny is full-time and they typically work eight hours in a day, you will want to offer eight hours per paid holiday.

If your nanny’s typical shift is only four hours, for example, because they are part-time, you would want to offer four hours of paid holiday time.

Ten paid federal holidays is a very standard number of paid holidays to offer your nanny in a year-long contract.

These holidays would include New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, President’s Day, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day.

Children who are either in school or in preschool may need full days of care on some of those federal holidays if parents are still working.

My recommendation is to go ahead and look at the calendar year for both your work schedule as well as the child’s school schedule to see which days you might need additional coverage for.

And did you know it’s actually not a legal requirement to pay your nanny time and a half if they work on a federal holiday?

However, it is generally accepted as the norm to pay your nanny time and a half if they have to work some of these holidays.

Paying extra on these days is a great way to incentivize them working on these holidays as well as to show appreciation for your nanny working on these holidays.

Some nannies seek compensation packages that have actually 14 days of paid holidays.

This would include all of the ten named federal holidays above in addition to the day after Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, the day after Christmas, and New Year’s Eve.

It’s worth noting that some of those paid extra days I just named might even fall under guaranteed hours if the parents aren’t working those days and they don’t need nanny coverage.

It’s also pretty typical to have a paid observed holiday day, say on a Monday after Christmas or New Year’s if one of those holidays lands on a weekend.

And for any families out there who have part-time nannies, I would look at the calendar year you expect your nanny to work as well as your schedule and see what holidays land during their typical workweek.

If a nanny is only working, say, Tuesday through Thursday, and Christmas, for example, lands on a Monday, you could use discretion on whether or not to include a bonus paid holiday in their paycheck for that week.

All right, everyone, I hope you found this video helpful.

If you like this video, please click the like button, subscribe, or ring the bell so that you can be notified when more of these videos come out in the future.

And families, if you haven’t seen it yet, please check out this video: How to be the best nanny employer. It’s one you don’t want to miss!

Thank you, everyone. Bye!