Received Wednesday, May 5, 2010
**** Family
Nanny Role and Responsibilities 2010
Job Description: This is a child-care partnership. The goal is for *** and *** to grow and thrive in a happy, stable environment. Your duties will require a strong work ethic and some flexibility. Our girls are kind, loving, energetic, and affable children. Since we live in the heart of Boston, we want them to have an opportunity to be exposed to the many activities available in our neighborhood for them as well as make friends with other children.
Responsibilities: Your primary and most important responsibility is the safety and well being of the children during the hours that we are away from home. During the day, we expect that you also will undertake a variety of activities to develop the children including reading to them, playing with them and their toys, arranging some classes for them, etc. Our expectation is that no television will be watched during the day. Weather permitting, we also would like to see the children have the opportunity to get out of our home at least once per day (unless of course they are sick) – possible places to visit are nearby parks, the Prudential mall (in inclement winter) and the Boston Public Library (as they get older and can attend reading groups). We also can arrange for you to have access to the children’s playroom and swimming pool at the University Club where we are members and which is two blocks from our home. As you are getting settled in to being our nanny, we will show you around the neighborhood. We will also introduce you to our building staff, who are always happy to help anyone in the building and all adore our girls.
Household Tasks Related to the Children: In addition to taking care of the children, our nanny would be responsible for general tidiness related to them (their laundry, cleaning up their room, changing their cribs and the diaper pail, picking up their toys at the end of each day, etc.). You also would be expected to make sure that we have adequate diapers/supplies for the girls. When we take vacations or go to the Cape for weekends, our nanny is responsible for organizing and packing their bags (obviously with some input from us).
Meals for the Children: Our nanny is responsible for preparing the children’s meals and feeding them as appropriate. We also make some nutritious meals for them over the weekend and allow for extra portions to use during the week. In general, our approach is to expose our children to the same food that we enjoy eating. We also are both into cooking and have a philosophy of whenever possible to provide homemade meals and healthy snacks rather than prepared/processed foods.
General Household Tasks: Although we do NOT expect our nanny to be responsible for “heavy cleaning” the rest of our home (we have a regular housekeeper who takes care of this and comes every other week), our nanny is responsible for more basic household needs that we would ordinarily do if we were home with the girls (errands, empty the dishwasher, take the garbage out, tidying up the living room, food preparation, vacuum when necessary and a minimum of once per week if the housekeeper is not coming that week.) We will occasionally ask you to do some of our laundry (especially towels) when do not have time and cannot wait until our regular housekeeper comes (who does do all of ***’s and ***’s laundry every time she is here). In general our philosophy is that we would want you to do anything and everything that we ourselves would do and that by doing so, you allow us to have some extra time with our girls that we would not otherwise be able to have with them (given both of our hectic work schedules, we value every minute that we can find to spend with them).
Driving duties: Our expectation is that our nanny will have negligible driving responsibilities since we live in the heart of the city and everything is within walking distance. The only possible exception may be periodically driving the children to MGH for a doctor’s appointment (note that *** will meet you there since her office at MGH is a few floors away from pediatrics department.) The other option to avoid driving (which works quite well) is that you simply walk over to MGH with the girls in the stroller since it is only about 20 minutes by foot.
Swimming: As discussed, we will want you to go with one of us for swimming practice/lessons at the University Club as they get a little older and we expect that you are an able swimmer and are comfortable being in the pool with the children (naturally we would not expect you to be completely alone with the children in the pool until they are older and able to swim so one of us would be with you or alternatively we would arrange for a swim instructor at the Club to help you).
Hours: You will average approximately 50 hours per week from Monday through Friday with specific schedule to be provided approximately two weeks in advance via a Google calendar. Unless mutually agreed upon, the day will never start before 8 AM (*** is definitely not an early riser) and more likely begin at 830 or 9 AM. In general, the day will end by 630 or 7 PM. If asked, however, we would expect that you would be willing to work one weeknight per week (which would rarely if ever go later than 10 PM since we are no longer night owls) as part of your average 50 hours since we occasionally have evening functions during the week (we would make a very concerted effort to provide you with a minimum of two weeks advanced notice for these weeknight events.)
Should our nanny be asked to work outside these normal hours (i.e. additional weeknights or weekends), it will only be by mutual agreement and compensated as described in the Compensation section herein. Note that we would NEVER ask you to work more than two weeknights since we want you to have time to enjoy yourself and relax at the end of the day with the children.
General Guidelines/”Rules”:
**** Family
Nanny Role and Responsibilities 2010
Job Description: This is a child-care partnership. The goal is for *** and *** to grow and thrive in a happy, stable environment. Your duties will require a strong work ethic and some flexibility. Our girls are kind, loving, energetic, and affable children. Since we live in the heart of Boston, we want them to have an opportunity to be exposed to the many activities available in our neighborhood for them as well as make friends with other children.
Responsibilities: Your primary and most important responsibility is the safety and well being of the children during the hours that we are away from home. During the day, we expect that you also will undertake a variety of activities to develop the children including reading to them, playing with them and their toys, arranging some classes for them, etc. Our expectation is that no television will be watched during the day. Weather permitting, we also would like to see the children have the opportunity to get out of our home at least once per day (unless of course they are sick) – possible places to visit are nearby parks, the Prudential mall (in inclement winter) and the Boston Public Library (as they get older and can attend reading groups). We also can arrange for you to have access to the children’s playroom and swimming pool at the University Club where we are members and which is two blocks from our home. As you are getting settled in to being our nanny, we will show you around the neighborhood. We will also introduce you to our building staff, who are always happy to help anyone in the building and all adore our girls.
Household Tasks Related to the Children: In addition to taking care of the children, our nanny would be responsible for general tidiness related to them (their laundry, cleaning up their room, changing their cribs and the diaper pail, picking up their toys at the end of each day, etc.). You also would be expected to make sure that we have adequate diapers/supplies for the girls. When we take vacations or go to the Cape for weekends, our nanny is responsible for organizing and packing their bags (obviously with some input from us).
Meals for the Children: Our nanny is responsible for preparing the children’s meals and feeding them as appropriate. We also make some nutritious meals for them over the weekend and allow for extra portions to use during the week. In general, our approach is to expose our children to the same food that we enjoy eating. We also are both into cooking and have a philosophy of whenever possible to provide homemade meals and healthy snacks rather than prepared/processed foods.
General Household Tasks: Although we do NOT expect our nanny to be responsible for “heavy cleaning” the rest of our home (we have a regular housekeeper who takes care of this and comes every other week), our nanny is responsible for more basic household needs that we would ordinarily do if we were home with the girls (errands, empty the dishwasher, take the garbage out, tidying up the living room, food preparation, vacuum when necessary and a minimum of once per week if the housekeeper is not coming that week.) We will occasionally ask you to do some of our laundry (especially towels) when do not have time and cannot wait until our regular housekeeper comes (who does do all of ***’s and ***’s laundry every time she is here). In general our philosophy is that we would want you to do anything and everything that we ourselves would do and that by doing so, you allow us to have some extra time with our girls that we would not otherwise be able to have with them (given both of our hectic work schedules, we value every minute that we can find to spend with them).
Driving duties: Our expectation is that our nanny will have negligible driving responsibilities since we live in the heart of the city and everything is within walking distance. The only possible exception may be periodically driving the children to MGH for a doctor’s appointment (note that *** will meet you there since her office at MGH is a few floors away from pediatrics department.) The other option to avoid driving (which works quite well) is that you simply walk over to MGH with the girls in the stroller since it is only about 20 minutes by foot.
Swimming: As discussed, we will want you to go with one of us for swimming practice/lessons at the University Club as they get a little older and we expect that you are an able swimmer and are comfortable being in the pool with the children (naturally we would not expect you to be completely alone with the children in the pool until they are older and able to swim so one of us would be with you or alternatively we would arrange for a swim instructor at the Club to help you).
Hours: You will average approximately 50 hours per week from Monday through Friday with specific schedule to be provided approximately two weeks in advance via a Google calendar. Unless mutually agreed upon, the day will never start before 8 AM (*** is definitely not an early riser) and more likely begin at 830 or 9 AM. In general, the day will end by 630 or 7 PM. If asked, however, we would expect that you would be willing to work one weeknight per week (which would rarely if ever go later than 10 PM since we are no longer night owls) as part of your average 50 hours since we occasionally have evening functions during the week (we would make a very concerted effort to provide you with a minimum of two weeks advanced notice for these weeknight events.)
Should our nanny be asked to work outside these normal hours (i.e. additional weeknights or weekends), it will only be by mutual agreement and compensated as described in the Compensation section herein. Note that we would NEVER ask you to work more than two weeknights since we want you to have time to enjoy yourself and relax at the end of the day with the children.
General Guidelines/”Rules”:
Infant PR/First-Aid Course -- We require our Nanny to either be Infant CPR and First Aid certified at the time of joining us or alternatively complete the course within 30 days of coming to work for us as a condition of continuing employment.
Flu shots -- We require that our nanny have a seasonal flu shot each year as a condition of employment. These shots are available free of charge at MGH’s flu clinic each flu season.
People in our home - We would not want our nanny inviting anyone over to our home without prior discussion with us (including potential play dates with other children and nannies). In general, if we do not know the parents, we would not want the children in our home without one of us being here.
Attire – We want you to be comfortable in our home and in attire suitable to play with the children. We do not, however, want you to wear attire that we have seen some nannies wear around Back Bay, which seems like they are headed out for a night on the town (i.e. short skirts, tight or very low-rise pants and tight blouses) or the gym (workout clothes). As discussed, we view you as a professional and a role model for our girls and as such we prefer to see you wear business casual attire.
Petty Cash - We provide a “petty cash mug” in our kitchen for incidental expenses that you may have with the children throughout the day. Just put a receipt in the mug equaling the cash that you took from it and we will replenish as necessary.
Work outside of our home - Our nanny would be working fulltime for us. We pay a very competitive wage and as such, we want our nanny to use her off-time to recharge her batteries and relax (we know how exhausting twin girls can be some times!). As such, we would expect that she would not work for any other family on a regular basis or have any other regular employment including during nights and weekends (occasionally baby-sitting or modest seasonal work such as retail around Christmas are permissible exceptions.)
No smoking or drug use at anytime either at home or anyplace – self-explanatory.
Commitments: Our expectation is that our nanny is committed to long-term relationship with our family and at a minimum, is available and will work with us on a full-time basis until December 2011 (the girls will be entering pre-school in September 2011 and we want them to have a nanny picking them up at school for the first semester that they have an existing relationship with). Should you not be able to fulfill this commitment at any time, we would expect a minimum of three weeks notice to allow us adequate time to find a proper replacement for you.
It is absolutely required that we can count on you 100% and that you are punctual in getting to our home for your assigned hours. We both have professions where many people depend on us to be there for them (in the case of ***, patients with literally life threatening conditions) and should we not be able to do so because you do not show up on time (or not at all), it would create serious problems for us and lead to the termination of your employment.
We are both committed to continuing education and understand that you want to finish your degree which we are supportive of, provided however, that you are able to manage your classes in such a way as not interfere in your responsibilities as our nanny and commitment to being with us fulltime through December 2011. Should you be interested, we will likely be interested in continuing with you as our nanny after December 2011 on a modified schedule and contract that would allow you to attend classes while our girls are in school themselves.
Communications: We value your presence as a member of our household team, and as such, want to insure that communication is open, honest and appropriate. On most days, **** will likely call you one or more times/day in order to check on how the girls are doing with their day and if any issues have come up. It is also our expectation that any serious issues (fevers, falls, injury, vomiting, unusual behavior, etc) that come up will be communicated to *** (or*** if *** is away or unreachable) either by phone or text as soon as possible.
We will strive to bring up any issues/concerns that arise with your performance in a timely fashion, and would expect that you would do the same if you have any issues or concerns with your job. We will make every effort to address any of your concerns as soon as possible. We also will sit down with you at approximately the three month and twelve month internal for a nanny review.
Compensation, Benefits and Vacation: Our philosophy is that our nanny is a professional and as such, she receives a weekly salary and not an hourly rate like a babysitter. We also pay our nanny a very competitive weekly salary for 52 weeks of the year so that she knows with certainly what she will be making each week (regardless of how many hours she actually works in a given week). The trade-off for us is that we ask our nanny to be flexible and reasonable with us in terms of the following:
Your hours will average 50 hours per week over the course of the month — we do not want to be in position where we are being “nickeled and dimed” because we are occasionally 30 minutes late (which we will always call you and let you know if we are running late) nor do we want to be watching the clock and saying that we came home 30 minutes early so that we should reduce your pay by that amount since you were allowed to leave early. We are very conscientious of our nanny and the average hours that we are asking her to work each week so we do not try to take advantage of this arrangement.)
Flu shots -- We require that our nanny have a seasonal flu shot each year as a condition of employment. These shots are available free of charge at MGH’s flu clinic each flu season.
People in our home - We would not want our nanny inviting anyone over to our home without prior discussion with us (including potential play dates with other children and nannies). In general, if we do not know the parents, we would not want the children in our home without one of us being here.
Attire – We want you to be comfortable in our home and in attire suitable to play with the children. We do not, however, want you to wear attire that we have seen some nannies wear around Back Bay, which seems like they are headed out for a night on the town (i.e. short skirts, tight or very low-rise pants and tight blouses) or the gym (workout clothes). As discussed, we view you as a professional and a role model for our girls and as such we prefer to see you wear business casual attire.
Petty Cash - We provide a “petty cash mug” in our kitchen for incidental expenses that you may have with the children throughout the day. Just put a receipt in the mug equaling the cash that you took from it and we will replenish as necessary.
Work outside of our home - Our nanny would be working fulltime for us. We pay a very competitive wage and as such, we want our nanny to use her off-time to recharge her batteries and relax (we know how exhausting twin girls can be some times!). As such, we would expect that she would not work for any other family on a regular basis or have any other regular employment including during nights and weekends (occasionally baby-sitting or modest seasonal work such as retail around Christmas are permissible exceptions.)
No smoking or drug use at anytime either at home or anyplace – self-explanatory.
Commitments: Our expectation is that our nanny is committed to long-term relationship with our family and at a minimum, is available and will work with us on a full-time basis until December 2011 (the girls will be entering pre-school in September 2011 and we want them to have a nanny picking them up at school for the first semester that they have an existing relationship with). Should you not be able to fulfill this commitment at any time, we would expect a minimum of three weeks notice to allow us adequate time to find a proper replacement for you.
It is absolutely required that we can count on you 100% and that you are punctual in getting to our home for your assigned hours. We both have professions where many people depend on us to be there for them (in the case of ***, patients with literally life threatening conditions) and should we not be able to do so because you do not show up on time (or not at all), it would create serious problems for us and lead to the termination of your employment.
We are both committed to continuing education and understand that you want to finish your degree which we are supportive of, provided however, that you are able to manage your classes in such a way as not interfere in your responsibilities as our nanny and commitment to being with us fulltime through December 2011. Should you be interested, we will likely be interested in continuing with you as our nanny after December 2011 on a modified schedule and contract that would allow you to attend classes while our girls are in school themselves.
Communications: We value your presence as a member of our household team, and as such, want to insure that communication is open, honest and appropriate. On most days, **** will likely call you one or more times/day in order to check on how the girls are doing with their day and if any issues have come up. It is also our expectation that any serious issues (fevers, falls, injury, vomiting, unusual behavior, etc) that come up will be communicated to *** (or*** if *** is away or unreachable) either by phone or text as soon as possible.
We will strive to bring up any issues/concerns that arise with your performance in a timely fashion, and would expect that you would do the same if you have any issues or concerns with your job. We will make every effort to address any of your concerns as soon as possible. We also will sit down with you at approximately the three month and twelve month internal for a nanny review.
Compensation, Benefits and Vacation: Our philosophy is that our nanny is a professional and as such, she receives a weekly salary and not an hourly rate like a babysitter. We also pay our nanny a very competitive weekly salary for 52 weeks of the year so that she knows with certainly what she will be making each week (regardless of how many hours she actually works in a given week). The trade-off for us is that we ask our nanny to be flexible and reasonable with us in terms of the following:
Your hours will average 50 hours per week over the course of the month — we do not want to be in position where we are being “nickeled and dimed” because we are occasionally 30 minutes late (which we will always call you and let you know if we are running late) nor do we want to be watching the clock and saying that we came home 30 minutes early so that we should reduce your pay by that amount since you were allowed to leave early. We are very conscientious of our nanny and the average hours that we are asking her to work each week so we do not try to take advantage of this arrangement.)
You being comfortable with your hours varying somewhat day to day and week to week as described above under the section on Hours.
You understanding that both of us have some significant professional responsibilities and that sometimes, things are beyond our control no mater how much we prioritize our children and being fair to our Nanny (i.e. *** gets pulled at the end of the day with a last minute procedure at the hospital or *** gets stuck at the office on a board call that runs long).
Willingness to help out with whatever is asked around our home with non-childcare household duties (as described herein under the Responsibilities section)
Our Vacation Bank concept discussed below.
Base Salary: $XXX per week, payable every two weeks. As we finalize this arrangement, we will discuss how we will jointly handle federal and state income tax withholding as well as statutory-required employee and employer social security costs.
Our nanny is responsible for her own healthcare costs.
To the extent that your average hours in a month materially exceeded an average of 50 hours per week, we would either “top you up” at a rate of $XX/hr or alternatively, deduct those hours from the Vacation Bank (if there were any available hours in there)
Any additional weeknight/weekend hours not covered by the average of 50 hours per week would be paid in cash at the rate of $XX/hr or alternatively those hours would be deducted from the Vacation Bank (if there were any available hours in there)
At the conclusion of twelve months of employment (but not before this time), you would be eligible for a cost of living increase based on the rate of inflation nationally and in Boston. These can be referred to as COLA adjustments, a term commonly used in government. COLA adjustments in the last several years have averaged 2% – 3.5%.
Vacation: Our nanny will receive two weeks (ten days) paid vacation per year and for simplicity the “vacation year” will run from May 1st – April 30th since you will be joining us in late April/early May. We expect that our nanny will coordinate her vacation plans with ours. One of our vacation weeks, for example, is always in the beginning of August. We will coordinate with our nanny on vacation schedule well in advance. In addition to these two weeks where our nanny and us are both on vacation, our family often takes an additional one to two weeks (often extended long weekends) for vacation where we would expect that our nanny would either come with us (at our option and expense) or alternatively arrange to shift these “unused” hours to other days/weeks as feasible – see additional information under Traveling with the Family and Vacation Bank—since she will be receiving a weekly salary.
Traveling with our family: We have not had our prior nanny travel with us on vacation but we want to reserve the option to do so with our new nanny. As discussed, we go away in the summer to ***’s family’s home on Cape Cod every weekend and for one to two full weeks of vacation and in the winter, we go to Sanibel where ***’s parents also have a condominium. If we decided to have you join us for a vacation at either location, our expectation is that you would be watching the children with us rather than us just leaving you alone for the entire day with them. In addition to being another person to watch them, your presence with us on vacation would allow us to “sleep in” some mornings as well as have a few evenings or afternoons alone to relax. We would expect that you also would have some time to yourself to sit by the pool, read, relax, etc (which we know you would enjoy since Sanibel and Cape Cod are such wonderful places to visit.) We naturally would cover food and transportation expenses that you might have with us and you be responsible for any additional expenses that you might incur while you are enjoying these beautiful places on your off-time (i.e. “a fruity drink by the pool” or a day out sightseeing on the town.). With regards to accommodations during the vacation, you may need to share a room with the girls (especially in Florida where space is tighter than on the Cape).
The “Vacation Bank”: Beyond your two weeks of paid vacation (which you coordinate with us), any additional time that we take as a family for vacation, we expect our nanny to either come with us and work that week (if we so elect) or alternatively agree to make up the hours at our mutual convenience at another time and let you effectively have that time off (if we elect to not have you join us on vacation.). For the sake of illustration, assume that we take a third week of vacation and you do not join us, we would then have 50 hours in our Vacation Bank to use in any combination of the following:
Ask you to work an additional weeknight evening (beyond the one evening that you are agreeing to do as part of your “normal” week)
Ask you to work for us on a weekend day or evening
Ask you to work a materially longer week than a typical 50 hours for a week
Ask you to do nothing more and effectively it is a bonus” for you since you were paid and did not have to work those hours.
Holidays: In addition to vacation, our nanny would receive the following days off as paid –New Year’s Day, Memorial Day, July 4th, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas (given ***’s call schedule at the hospital, she is often working many of the other holidays.) As discussed, we make every effort to allow our nanny to leave early on the eve of major holidays (e.g. Good Friday, Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve).
Sick Days: We provide three paid sick days per twelve-month period for our nanny. Note that there is a cost to us when you take a sick day since we need to bring in a back-up nanny service, which we have on call for such instances.
Accommodating special plans or an evening event: We try to be very reasonable with our nanny and try to accommodate occasional requests in setting the schedule where you want to be able to leave by a certain time one evening even though if is before 7PM -- for example, you have tickets one evening for a Red Sox game and want to be able to leave our home by 530 . We cannot always do it but we try are hardest to do so especially if given some prior notice. In addition, to the extent that our nanny wants or needs to take a day or days off other than our coordinated vacations or the preceding holidays, we need to discuss well in advance but will try to arrange to shift these work hours to other days that work for both of us.
Discretionary Bonus: At the end of your first twelve months of employment, you will be eligible for a discretionary bonus based on the following:
Your performance in the job as our nanny. Are you meeting requirements of the job satisfactorily or going above and beyond the call?
Whether you can take any of your sick days (Since it costs us money to bring in a replacement for the day)
The performance of the overall economy and especially the ***** household whose income can vary substantially each year since our incomes are very variable and tied to bonuses based on the profits of ***’s firm.
For the sake of clarity, you could be doing an outstanding job based on your annual review but receive little, if any, bonus if we experience a “bad year” in the ***** household. That said, if we are having a good year, we very much believe in “sharing the wealth” should we review you as a top-performing nanny.
Should we provide a bonus to our nanny, it could take two forms:
Cash: Additional paid time-off (in essence, not asking you to make up some hours in the Vacation Bank (should there be any) and thereby providing you with additional paid vacation time beyond your two standard two weeks.)
Transportation: We can generally provide on-site parking at our building for your car at no cost to you (which actually would cost you between $300 -$400/month if you were looking to find parking in Back Bay.) The exception is when there is significant inclement weather in winter and in that case you should have an alternative available to you to take public transportation since parking can be more limited at our building at those times since they are handling snow removal (not to mention that driving around Boston in snow is difficult.). The Green and Orange Lines are readily accessible to our home (within one to two blocks of our home).
Fitness Center/Locker Room: As discussed, our building has a nice fitness center that you can use at the end of the day if you wish. There is also a locker room where you can shower/change afterwards. Please recognize that this facility is used only by our building and as such you are likely to bump into our neighbors – we ask that you be respectful of them.
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