How to Raise a Tricky Subject With the Family You Work For

Most jobs let you leave work at work. Nannying doesn't quite work like that. Your office is someone's lounge, your colleagues are their children, and your boss is usually standing in the kitchen making toast when you arrive. It's one of the best parts of the job and, when something needs to be sorted out, one of the hardest.

Plenty of nannies we speak with have been sitting on the same worry for months. The hours have crept up. The pay hasn't moved since 2023. There's now a third child in the house who wasn't there when the role started. None of it feels big enough to make a fuss about, so it gets left, and then it quietly becomes the reason someone hands in their notice.

Here's the thing worth knowing before you say anything: you're an employee. Not a helper, not a family friend who happens to get paid. That gives you rights under New Zealand employment law and it gives the family obligations. Asking a question about your own terms of employment is normal. It isn't picking a fight.

Assume nobody meant to do it

This one matters more than anything else in this article.

For a lot of families, you are the first person they have ever employed. They've never written an employment agreement, never calculated holiday pay, never thought about what happens when they go to Fiji for a fortnight. Most of the problems we see aren't caused by families being difficult. They're caused by families genuinely not knowing.

That works both ways too. Sometimes a decision looks unfair from where you're standing simply because nobody has explained the thinking behind it.

Starting from "they probably haven't realised" gets you a much better conversation than starting from "they're taking the mickey".

Timing does half the work

Ten past eight on a Monday, with the toddler mid-meltdown and someone hunting for car keys, is not the moment. Neither is 5.30pm when everyone's shattered.

Ask for a proper time instead. Something like "could we grab twenty minutes this week to have a chat about a couple of work things?" is enough. It gives the family a heads up, it stops them feeling ambushed, and it usually means they turn up having thought about it.

Then talk about the situation rather than the person. "You keep changing my hours" makes someone defensive before you've finished the sentence. "My hours have shifted around a bit lately and I'm finding it tricky to plan around, can we look at that?" is the same message with a much better landing.

The four that come up most

Being asked to work on a day off. If you're free and keen, brilliant. If you're not, you're allowed to say no. Your days off are yours, and unless your employment agreement says otherwise, extra work is by agreement, not instruction.

Being told to take annual leave while the family is away. This is easily the most common question we get. If you're ready, willing and available to work, an employer generally can't just decide your annual leave for you. There are options that often suit both sides, like agreeing to the leave, taking unpaid leave, or doing other work around the house while they're gone. Check your agreement too, since some include a shutdown period or Christmas arrangement.

No pay rise in a long time. Families juggling work and kids are not sitting around thinking about your salary review. If it's been a year or more, raise it. Come with something to talk about: extra responsibilities you've picked up, training you've done, how the kids are going, what similar roles are paying now. A conversation about your contribution goes better than a conversation about money.