Parents, Nannies may ask…am I being flexible?! Or do we need to re-visit the work agreement.

No matter how air tight a parent + nanny work agreement may be, things come up that BOTH parents and nannies need to be flexible on to establish a win-win, forward moving work relationship.  For example, a parent or nanny may be occasionally late (which hopefully includes a phone call heads up or ask!).  Or, a parent is understanding when a small, previously agreed upon task didn’t get completed.  Perhaps a parent says an annoying thing or something that seems sort of clueless about the nanny industry.  These infrequent, one-off kind of asks and goofs are relatively easy to accept or ignore when a nanny and parent start off on the right foot with generally good communication, respect, and a solid work agreement that clearly outlines role and expectations (see the Same Team Checklist inside the course for a crystal clear, detailed work agreement).  But what if these infrequent, minor asks, late arrivals, or duties agreed upon simply don’t get done on the regular?  It’s time for the nanny and parent to allocate a time outside of regular work hours where they can sit down to discuss.  Ideally, parents and nannies are doing regular check-ins, but if there is a mounting list of concerns that seem to be out of alignment with the work agreement, a more formal meeting may be necessary. 

There are conflicting views (source: https://hbr.org/2013/04/the-sandwich-approach-undermin) on beginning hard nanny-parent conversations with the positive, communicating points of concern with desired improvement in the middle, and ending on the positive (aka “the positive sandwich”).  However, I have found this approach to work relatively well in my 7+ years as a parent who has worked with nannies and babysitters.  I may not start the conversation completely cheery, but I do like to ease into the important item I need to discuss.  In a scenario where the parent is addressing a chronic ask for flexibility (not previously agreed upon in the work agreement), a nanny might say to a parent:  “I love working with you and am generally happy to be flexible when needed, but we hadn’t outlined my role as cleaning up from dinner the night before in the work agreement.”  In an ideal scenario, the parent and nanny can talk through options here.  The nanny may not be willing to continue with the extra clean up – and that’s ok!  The additional task wasn’t previously agreed upon.  In another scenario, the nanny may be interested in increased pay for this or other tasks.

In sum, it’s excellent when both sides can bend a little here and there to support each other in favor of a positive, can-do work relationship.  But when small asks become regular asks it is likely time to revisit the work agreement.  No work agreement?  No problem.  Although it’s ideal to settle on a work agreement in the beginning, I believe is never too late to get into the parent-nanny huddle and outline a work agreement together to improve the working relationship.  Don’t hesitate to share your thoughts on this post in our facebook group page: www.facebook.com/groups/same.team.childcare