The Cost of Not Speaking Up When You're Underpaid
Hey nannies, long time no talk! We’ve been busy here at Nanny Counsel focusing on Nanny Placements, but sincerely miss blogging, so here we are. I want to start this article off by having you ask yourself if you’ve ever waited to speak up about something at your job? Some examples include: You realize you should be getting mileage reimbursement, you realize you’re not being paid overtime, you realize you’re underpaid, you realize you haven’t gotten a raise in 3 years, you realize your bosses have been banking your hours…
Let me just go ahead raise my hand because I’ve certainly hesitated to speak up, and I’m sure many of you are raising your hands too. So, let’s paint a couple pictures:
SCENARIO 1: Molly has been with her Nanny Family for 6 months. Everything is going great — she absolutely loves the kids and is close with her Mom Boss. The parents are super laid back and Molly has a ton of freedom within her role. She honestly could see herself with this family for years to come, but there’s one issue: Molly isn’t receiving overtime pay. When Molly interviewed for the position, it was advertised as $18/hour for 50 hours per week and she was hired on at $900/week. Unfortunately, what she didn’t realize was the family did “magic math” and worked the hourly rate backwards to account for the 10 hours of overtime each week. When Molly learns about overtime laws from some nanny Facebook groups, she realizes that she is not actually making $18 per hour and is actually making $16.37 per hour, once she accounts for 10 hours of weekly overtime. Why should Molly be penalized and drop her worth/hourly rate simply because her job needs her to work over 40 hours per week? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of overtime laws? Molly decides to wait to speak up until her 1-year review. She thinks it’s way too soon to ask for more money and it’s her fault for not realizing “magic math” was in play when signing the contract. By bringing it up at 1 year and not asking for any back-pay, Molly is confident her bosses will appreciate they saved so much money in the past year and there is no way they won’t pay true overtime going forward.
SCENARIO 2: Emma has been with her nanny family for over 2 years and has become like part of the family. She is incredibly attached to the kids and her bosses are pretty nice, albeit frugal. They expect A LOT of non-child related responsibilities for the $15/hour they pay her. She cares for 3 kids and is responsible for the parents’ laundry, running errands, sometimes preparing family dinners, and often cleans up their dishes in the morning from the night before. She also uses her car to transport the children but doesn’t receive any sort of mileage reimbursement. Emma gets involved in her local nanny community and starts to learn about just how much she’s underpaid. The going rate in her city is apparently $15/hour for 1 child, and that’s just for nanny responsibilities – not family assistant! Plus, nannies are telling her they receive annual raises to account for cost of living increases and loyalty/good performance and some have a nanny car provided or are reimbursed mileage at the current IRS rate. What?? Her mind is blown. Apparently they all have this written up into a contract, which Emma does not have. She is driving about 50 miles each week transporting the kids/running work-related errands, and should be receiving about $30/week in mileage reimbursement. That’s over $1,500 per year! She’s also been there for over 2 years and never received any sort of annual raise — not even a small cost of living increase. Unfortunately, Emma just cannot bring herself to speak up to her bosses about it. There is no way they will raise her pay AND reimburse mileage. She has major anxiety when it comes to any sort of confrontation. Plus, she loves her nanny kids so much — this family needs her and relies on her unwavering loyalty. She cannot just abandon them like that, so she decides to stay.
Nannies, what I’m about to say is not some groundbreaking revolutionary information, but it is something many, many nannies fail to recognize: More often than not, an employer will NOT give you a huge jump in compensation all at once to catch you up to where you should be, even when you present them with all the facts and resources to prove to them you are being underpaid/taken advantage of.
It doesn’t matter if they’ve saved money for years by not giving you raises or not paying you overtime or not reimbursing your mileage. Parents will almost never view it as having “saved money” and they will almost never appreciate your “generosity” for waiting so long to speak up. Because guess what? It wasn’t generous of you, it was naive and merely undervaluing yourself. The longer you wait to speak up, the deeper the hole you dig yourself into. We teach people how to treat us by setting boundaries. When a person is accustomed to those boundaries, it’s difficult to convince them to come along with you when you move that boundary. The longer you accept a rate less than what you’re worth, the harder it is to convince someone that you’ve actually been lowballing yourself solely for their benefit and that they now need to value your work at a much higher rate. Plus, when it comes to money, most prefer gradual cost increases. If you went to Starbucks tomorrow and a latte was $10, you’d be upset. How dare they skyrocket the prices like that!
Going back to the scenarios above, if Molly waits an entire year to talk to her bosses about the unpaid overtime, they would be taken aback that she’s known about it for six months, and have major sticker shock. But what if Molly had brought it to their attention at 6 months? At that point, Molly had a great argument since the position was advertised misleadingly. She would be asking for $90 more dollars per week to bring her up to a true $18/hour. Then, at the 1-year mark, an annual raise of about 5.5%, would bump her up an additional $55 per week, or a $1 raise to $19/hour, which is where she should be. Both of these weekly numbers are pretty manageable to the family. However, Molly didn’t do that. She brought it up at the 1-year mark and her bosses were shocked she was asking for an additional $145 per week! That’s about a 16% raise with no change in job duties.
Molly’s bosses were planning on offering her a 6% total raise (or $1/hour), but that still left Molly’s base hourly rate at $17.37, which is still below the $18/hour she was originally hired at. Molly’s bosses felt like a 6% raise was more than fair, especially considering Molly was fine with her pay for an entire year. Molly and her nanny family mutually decide to part ways and they end up hiring a new nanny for $19/hour with true overtime. Yes, you read that right. They end up hiring a new nanny for the same price Molly was asking to be raised to. They preferred to lose Molly and give someone new the money she had asked for, rather than give her that large of a raise all at once.
It’s not always the case, but time and time again I see parents willing to part ways with their long-term nanny when they ask for a large jump in pay to account for being underpaid. These families usually end up hiring someone new and start them at the higher rate their former nanny requested. I think it’s difficult for employers to bump up an existing employee’s pay *that* much after the employee has willingly worked for much less. I also think many families truly think they can find someone for what their former nanny had cost, but end up having to bump up the pay range during the job search. It’s a really unfortunate situation when this happens because clearly the family is willing and can afford to pay the higher rate, but the nanny simply did not approach it correctly. Instead, the nanny cemented their value at a lower rate and then shocked the parents by suddenly asking for a big jump in pay.
Now what about Emma? Well, another 3 years go by and Emma is still making the same $15/hour and not receiving any sort of mileage reimbursement. She’s finally had enough and gains the courage to ask her bosses for a sit down meeting. She knows it’s a really huge jump to get her to where she truly should be, so she’s going to lowball to make it easier for them. In her eyes, she should have been making at least $18/hour from the start: $17/hour for 3 kids + $1/hour for family assistant duties (and that’s being generous - she really should have been making an extra $2-$5/hour for the family assistant tasks). Add onto that 5 years of $1-$2 per hour annual raises she should have gotten, and that’s another $5/hour. That puts Emma at $23 per hour. She knows this is way too much of a jump, so she decides she is going to ask for $20/hour and mileage reimbursement at the IRS rate.
Emma lays everything out for her bosses. She’s broken it down, has proof of the going rate in their city, and presents articles to back up what she is saying. Her bosses are immediately put off. They tell her that her hourly rate includes mileage reimbursement — it’s already worked into her pay since she took the job knowing driving was required. They are also shocked she’s asking for a $5/hour raise. They offer Emma a $2/hour raise and that’s it — no mileage reimbursement. Emma is, understandably disappointed, but feels stuck. She loves the kids so much and has been with this family for 5 years. $17/hour is better than the $15/hour she’s been making, so she accepts their offer. About a month later, Emma’s nanny family lets her go without notice or severance, as they are worried she isn’t happy and will be looking for a new position since she feels she should be making a lot more money. They found a new nanny eager to take on her role for $15/hour.
Props to Emma for finally speaking up, but for 5 years she happily doubled as a family assistant without raises or mileage reimbursement and she suddenly asked for a $5 jump in pay? Of course the family is shocked! For 5 years Emma valued her work at $5 less per hour and never said a word, so that’s the number her employer has learned to value her work at. Plus in this case, her employer has no intentions of paying over $15/hour. They know they can find another nanny at this rate, and for budget reasons it’s all they can afford. It’s a really sad situation and not the outcome Emma at all expected. She devoted 5 years of her life to a family who let her go the moment she stood up for herself. If Emma had spoken up as soon as she realized she was being underpaid, she could have saved herself 3 years of attachment and pouring into a family that would ultimately let her go. She could have already moved on to a new family with market pay + mileage reimbursement. Instead, she prioritized her nanny family’s well being over her own. It sounds altruistic, but it isn’t. It’s self sabotage, it’s naive, and it’s unwise.
Nannying is a very intimate job so the lines easily get blurred, but it is still a job nonetheless. Nannies have a duty to serve themselves and their own family before the families who employ them. A family will just about always do what’s best for them (and rightfully so), and nannies should do the same. Nannies should speak up now because there’s a greater chance they can gradually increase their pay to get them to where they should be. Or, at the very least, the nanny will learn sooner that the family will not budge and it’s best to just part ways now. By doing so, a nanny can sooner move on to a new position with fair pay and better working conditions. It’s okay to genuinely love what you do AND require competitive compensation.
If you are being underpaid or taken advantage of, my advice is to speak up now. With that said, if you’ve already waited too long, be prepared for it to not work out in your favor. In fact, even if you haven’t waited too long, still be prepared for it to not work out in your favor. When speaking up and negotiating, you always need to be willing to walk away in order to have a chance at getting what you want. And again if nothing else, the sooner you speak up, the sooner you will learn whether or not a family is willing to give you incremental pay increases or legal overtime or mileage reimbursement or stop banking hours, which therefore will tell you whether or not you should continue investing in the relationship or start looking for something new.