Employment Contracts for Nannys

A recommendation, a shortlist, endless checks, not to mention a spoonful of luck, are the key ingredients to finding your bright and shiny, new nanny. The hard work does not end there, however.

As one of Australia’s newest employers, you’ll have a part to play as a stakeholder in an employment culture that is one of the most employee-friendly in the world. 

There’s plenty to consider, from payslips to taxes along with overtime to manage. First up though is the contract. Read on to find out what should go into this highly important document.

Why You Need to Have a Contract

There are good reasons for having a written contract between you and your nanny. Australia takes employment law extremely seriously.

It even demands that all employers adhere to its National Employment Standards (NES). These are the minimum employment entitlements that you must provide your nanny with. You’ll find more detail about each of these below.

Although it is technically possible that your nanny might be a contractor, it’s not the norm. In almost all cases the relationship you will have with your nanny will be that of an employer and an employee.

In Australia, the Fair Work Ombudsman has set out various awards that apply to different types of jobs. These awards help to determine rates of pay. Nannies come under the Miscellaneous Award.

Before getting to the contract stage, you must make sure that the number of nanny hours you need meets your budget. We’ve compiled a helpful guide to nanny hourly rates in Australia. You can read it here. 

The Legalities of Contracts Explained

As an employer, you must give your new nanny a copy of the Fair Work Information Statement (the FWIS) when they start working for you. This is one of the 11 minimum entitlements of the NES. The keyword here is “minimum.” The other 10 relate to:

1.  Maximum Number of Weekly Hours

The maximum number is 38 plus any reasonable additional hours. There are rules around the interpretation of “reasonable.” These include taking into account a nanny’s personal circumstances and the notice you give your nanny to work any extra hours. 

2.  Requests for Flexible Working Arrangements

Your nanny may ask to change their working arrangement. This might happen if they are the parent of a child who’s of school age or under, for example. You can only refuse such a request on ‘reasonable business grounds.’

3.  Parental Leave and Related Entitlements

Any nanny is eligible for unpaid parental leave once they’ve completed at least 12 months of continuous service with you. They can ask for up to 12 months of unpaid leave and have the right to ask for an additional 12 months.

The rules are a little complex so it’s worth drilling down into them for a thorough understanding. You can read more about what’s involved here.

4.  Annual Leave

Your nanny will accumulate 4 weeks of paid annual leave for every year of service with you. Their entitlement to annual leave accumulates continuously even during periods of leave itself. You’ll need to base it on the number of ordinary hours your nanny works.

5.  Personal/Carer’s, Compassionate, Unpaid Family & Domestic Violence Leave

The term ‘personal/carer’s leave’ covers both your nanny’s sick and carer’s leave. Your nanny’s entitlement is 10 days every year when they’re full-time and 10 days pro rata if they are part-time.

Your nanny has an entitlement to 2 days’ compassionate leave to have time with a member of their household or immediate family who has a life-threatening illness or injury.

As well as this, they have an entitlement to 2 days of unpaid carer’s leave for any occasion when someone in their immediate household or family needs care or support due to personal illness, injury or an unexpected emergency.

Your nanny can take up to 5 days of unpaid family and domestic violence leave each year. This entitlement begins the day they start work, meaning they don’t have to build it up over time.

Your nanny must give you notice as soon as practicable about any kind of leave. Bear in mind that, in some circumstances, this could be at a point after the leave has actually started.

6.  Community Service Leave

Like other employees, your nanny can be absent from work to engage in certain kinds of community service. These include a voluntary emergency management activity and jury duty, including attendance for jury selection.

7.  Long Service Leave

If your nanny has worked with you for a long period of time, they will earn an entitlement to extra leave due to their long service.

8.  Public Holidays

Your nanny has an entitlement to at least a paid day off if they work a public holiday. You will have to pay them at a higher rate for the public holiday they work.

9.  Notice of Termination and Redundancy Pay

Nannies have the right to up to 5 weeks' notice of termination and up to 16 weeks' redundancy pay, both dependent on their length of service.

10. Switching From Casual to Permanent Employment

Although unlikely to apply in your nanny’s circumstances, this addresses the right for casual employees to become permanent employees.

The Employment Contract Tool

You may by now be feeling a little overwhelmed! Fear not. The Australian government has come up with an amazing online tool that makes building your nanny’s contract as simple as possible.

Click here for the link to the tool. The tool allows you to create a contract from scratch. All you need to supply are:

• The job title eg: “Nanny” and a job description
• The Award name your nanny’s role falls under, “Miscellaneous”
• Your nanny’s start date
• The rate you will pay your nanny

Paythenanny can guide you through the contract-making process. We'll support you in your choice of any optional clauses you may want to add to your contract. We’re able to offer a range of contract templates to help you as well.

The government’s online tool allows you to include optional clauses, already especially written for you, related to any or all of the following:

• The length of the probation period
• Flexible hours
• Averaging hours over more than a week
• Being on-call or on standby
• Hourly or weekly pay rates
• Frequency of pay (weekly, fortnightly or monthly)
• How you will pay your nanny (eg: electronically into their bank account)
• Penalty rates and overtime
• Allowances
• Annual bonus
• Annual pay review
• Additional parental leave 
• Employee obligations clause
• Conflict of interest
• Confidentiality
• Intellectual Property
• Disputes
• Resignation Notice periods
• Misconduct

The Importance of the Job Description

This lies at the heart of the contract. It’s the bit that needs to be crystal clear so that your nanny knows what you expect and understands what they’ll have to do.

Here are some suggestions that you could include:

• Preparing bottles for babies and taking care of feeding equipment
• Changing nappies and bathing babies
• Supervising the bathtimes of older children
• Dressing children in appropriate clothes for different activities
• Washing and ironing children's clothes
• Planning, preparing and supervising children’s meals and snacks
• Cleaning and washing up after meals
• Driving to the supermarket and shopping for food
• Coordinating and scheduling children's activities
• Driving the kids to school or taking them to play sports and other activities
• Supervising creative, outdoor or educational activities with the children
• Playing with the children
• Supervising rest and bedtimes
• Reading to and with the children
• Helping with school homework
• Tidying the kids’ bedrooms and play areas
• Disciplining the children as per parental instructions
• Carrying out light housework and running errands
• Ensuring adherence to taking medicine with parents’ consent
• Maintaining a log of significant events for parents to consult

As an employer, you might want to make minor changes to the job description further down the line. You must have a discussion with your nanny first and both parties must sign off any additions or alterations.

A COVID-19 Pandemic Clause

The phrase ‘pandemic clause’ is a casual term and not a formal one. It’s cropped up because some employers tried to force their employees to take all their annual leave during COVID-19 lockdowns.

Putting the law to one side, it’s worth taking a moment to consider:

• Whether this really would feel fair in all circumstances
• How you might be able to adapt to different ways of working during a lockdown

As an employer, you may have difficulty forcing a nanny to take their paid leave during a lockdown no matter how you write a clause into a contract. It’s highly likely that any such clause would be open to challenge.

The best course of action would be to forget about adding a clause specific to pandemics. Instead, a more general clause that outlines what would happen in the event of an emergency or disaster could be useful.



Checking and Sorting Your Contract

It’s always good practice to keep a signed copy of the contract and give a signed copy to your nanny.

Paythenanny is able to check the range of contracts our customers draw up. We are the nanny payroll experts. Nanny employment contracts are part of what we take care of every day.

If you’re employing a nanny, talk to us. We have a team of qualified accountants and tax experts to help take care of all the admin related to taking on a new nanny.