Don’t Hire a Nanny in Canada Before Reading These Three Tips

According to We Need Child Care, only about 20% of Canadian families can access quality and affordable child care services. It’s no surprise that nannies are becoming increasingly popular. Nannies are domestic or foreign help that live in or out of a family’s home, and help raise their children.

Picking the right nanny for your children is an important task — this is an individual that will be around your children every day, and will influence their upbringing and development. Here are three tips on how to hire a nanny.

1. You Need Clear Requirements

It’s important to establish a positive relationship with your nanny from the beginning, and one move that can potentially sour the relationship is not being clear about your expectations. If you have already told the nanny what hours they will be working, whether they can receive an education at the same time, or babysitting requirements, don’t change these details upon arrival. It will create distrust and resentment. You are an employer, as well as a parent.

2. Background Checks are a Must

Not conducting a thorough background check is easily one of the biggest nanny hiring mistakes. Don’t just rely on a resume to tell you the whole story. Call up references, verify records, and talk to the nanny — don’t just email. I had one nanny friend who went through three families in a year, and it was difficult for those families to find new nannies on short notice when that happened. If any of them had really checked up on her work history, though, they would see she had a fairly bad record of sticking around.

3. Work With a Canadian Nanny Agency

Although agencies might be more expensive upfront, they can save you a lot of hassle in the long run. Nannies are legally employed in Canada, meaning that there are rules and regulations you need to be following, and an agency can help you with this. Failing to have a contract, or abusing the rights of nannies by overworking them, can get you into legal trouble. The best nanny agencies will take over much of the verification process for you, as well — they can conduct background tests, interview candidates, and even do psychological screenings in order to ensure that the candidate is a great fit for your family.

Do you have tips on how to hire a nanny? Let us know in the comments. For more information, read this website: www.diamondpersonnel.com