Tips on Hiring & Managing a Nanny

When we hired a full-time nanny last year I had no idea where to start. Thankfully one of my best friends had a nanny already so she held my hand during the hiring process. I thought I’d share my tips and tricks here that might help you out if you find this post.

Where To Find A Nanny

I posted in an Ottawa area Facebook group and put up a profile on Canadiannanny.ca. It costs around $40/month to put up a job posting on the website. We actually ended up finding our nanny in the FB group. She had experience nannying for twins and triplets so we figured she was more than capable of handling our twins.

Interviewing Nannies

We asked nannies to meet us in a local park. This allowed them to feel comfortable meeting in a public place and we were staying with my parents when we moved back from BC to ON so it was easier to meet out at a park. This allowed us to see them play with the kids and ask them all our questions. Here was the list of questions I asked them:

What is your experience nannying?
Do you have a recent background check?
Do you have recent first aid?
Do you have any experience working with multiples (ie. twins)
What is your hourly rate?
Will you take them outside and play with them?
What sort of activities will you do with them to teach them new skills?

For those who were students, we asked if they were willing to commit to a long term contract as many were simply looking for a summer job.

Setting Up a Business & Payroll Account

I’ll share the steps I did to set up a business and payroll account with the Canadian government.

I registered a partnership in our names and then opened a payroll account with quarterly remittances. The payroll software actually remits it once a month so we’re always up to date.

How to register a business number with the CRA

How to open a payroll account with the CRA

Payroll

I had initially used Rise People as they had a free entry-level platform. I could do a direct deposit into our nanny’s bank account and they sent the government remittances directly to the CRA. However, they shifted their free plan to one that costs $6/month. So I shifted to Payment Evolution which promised a free plan. However, there was a $62 charge to onboard, and there is a $3.50 / payroll processing per paycheque. So technically I’m being charged around $12 a month. If it wasn’t such a hassle to transfer back, I’d probably shift back to Rise. I’ll just need to find time to do it.

Managing A Nanny

I made a white board to help communicate with our nanny. We started sleep training shortly after we hired her and to this day wake times are sacred in this house. So I would write down the wake times we were following at the top of the board. Then there is a section for nap times. So based on their wake time in the morning I would write down when they were to go down for their first nap (and now one nap).

I would write down what to feed them for lunch and snacks.

Then I have a section, for daily chores. I wrote down 1 daily chore to tackle while the twins nap as we hired her for light house work. I weekly schedule looks like this:

Monday: Mop Front Hall / Vacuum Mud Room
Tuesday: Vacuum Living Room
Wednesday: The Twins Laundry
Thursday: Vacuum Living Room
Friday: Mop Kitchen Floor

Now as the twins get older I also write down a bunch of age appropriate things to do with them to teach them new skills.

At 16 months old, the list looked like this as an example: