I don't want to return to work and I've employed a nanny, what shall I do ?

Hi

Thank you for posing a question. It can happen to anyone, until you begin maternity leave you will not know how you feel.

There are two parts to this answer, understanding your own rights in connection with not returning after maternity leave and quite separately how to end an employment…well I say end it, assuming it has already begun.

An excellent resource for up to date information about maternity rights for both you and in connection with someone you are employing is ACAS here is the link to the section you require .

With regard to your nanny, from a technical perspective treat this as any employment that needs to terminate not due to poor performance but due to a lack of need.  This is a useful guide.

If the employment is over one year you will have to carry out a series of different steps to if it has been a shorter employment. The important issue is to be clear from a technical point of view about why you are doing this, for example you no longer need to or can employ a nanny. It gets more complex if you, one week after terminating the employment, hire someone else in the same role, but lets assume that is not the case.

Another consideration is whether you still want a nanny but for less days, as part of the termination process you may want to discuss a contractual change.  That deals with the technical  stuff but what about the emotional element?  Liking the person you employed and feeling you are letting them down. There is no good answer to this. I would say deal with this at the earliest opportunity but with all the facts to hand, How much notice you give depends on the nature of the contractual relationship. But do you morally need to do more? That is up to you. If the nanny just left a job, has only just started with you and is only due a weeks notice then its worth thinking about whether you can do more to help as your employee will likely have bills to settle and will need to seek new employment starting more or less immediately, that can be tricky. Can you give, for example a longer notice?

Back to the technical stuff, what happens if you don’t have a written contract? What are your obligations? In the absence of a written contract everything reverts to Employment Law i.e

One week if the employee has been employed between one month and two years

One week for each complete year of employment (up to a maximum of 12 weeks) for example, for two year employment the notice period will be two weeks, for six years of employment the notice will be six week.

The fact that you are sensitive about this whole issue implies you will handle it properly.

Best wishes

                                                               Gaby

ps and if you are going to be home more join us for our coffee morning meet ups!

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