Nanny has jury duty
Hi everyone,
Any advice on best practices when a nanny is summoned to jury duty? What options would you recommend: unpaid leave, PTO or sick leave? She is wonderful and we want to be fair. It is just unknown territory and it will be very tricky for us with work / finding a substitute.
Thank you!
Jun 7, 2023
Parent Replies
We used the same policy as our employers use — the employee has the option of using vacation time or unpaid time off.
Finding backup childcare is tricky, yes. But her potentially having no income is probably a bigger issue for her than your backup childcare issue is for you. If she is wonderful, then pay her PTO. Wonderful nannies are in short supply.
Perhaps she has a nanny friend she could connect you with for the short-term?
If another time of year might be easier for your schedules, anyone can request a postponement of jury duty for up to six months. You might be able to coordinate it so the nanny requests jury date when you will be on vacation anyway.
Paying your employee is optional, but if you can, you should - and not require her to use her contractual sick time, etc.
I would say you should have a conversation with her and be a little cautious about what you offer. my friend just got called to serve an attempted murder case that will take 3 weeks and i have personally served 4 weeks for Grand Jury duty when I was on freelance income. When i was living in NYC, you did get paid like $45 a day for your service if your employer wasn't paying for it. It also wasn't a full day of service most days. So I would prepare to have an idea of what you'll do if its standard 3 days (I personally would pay her) and what you might do if its 3 weeks and have to pay for another full time person to support.