Several nannies will be working during the lockdown period. For these families and nannies, there is nothing further that you need to do for your payroll. You will continue to complete your timesheets as normal and be paid in line with your normal payroll cycles.

If you have not previously advised us that your nanny is continuing to work, we would appreciate if you let us know as soon as possible.

Next week we have our weekly and fortnightly payroll cycles. We anticipate that this will likely be a quite messy payroll with a number of changes, so the sooner we are aware of anything the better.

• Complete all timesheets for the two weeks ended 29th March
• Advise us if your nanny has finished employment
• Advise us of any leave taken that is not included in the normal timesheets
• Advise us of any changes to a nanny’s normal working hours
  

• Normal hours worked up until 29th March 2020
• Any leave subsidy already paid to them
• Normal deductions (Kiwisaver, Student Loan, PAYE etc)
  

• Normal hours worked up until 29th March 2020
• Normal deductions (Kiwisaver, ACC etc)
• A one-off charge for the subsidy application
  

On Friday the 27th of March and then again on Saturday the 28th of March, the government made significant changes to the scheme, which will directly impact on our families. This changes our approach for our customers trying to access the subsidy scheme.

Importantly, the government removed the leave subsidy scheme and folded this into the wage subsidy scheme. Previously, for all nannies that required it, we had applied under the leave subsidy scheme because most families were unlikely to meet the criteria of the rules for the wage subsidy scheme.

For all those requiring it, we have submitted an application to receive the wage subsidy. Given that we have already applied under the leave subsidy scheme, we do expect that we will have some delays in being successful for this application. The wage subsidy would cover a period of 12 weeks meaning that families will not need to continue to reapply. 

We believe that our families meet the “spirit” of why the scheme was set up. As a “business”, most families may not have had a 30% drop off in revenue (i.e still working from home without a drop in family income) but the “business”, and employee, has been fundamentally impacted by Covid-19. 

If nannies are not able to access this scheme, then families would have to continue paying them whilst they are not working, or nannies would have to go unpaid. We think that this is unfair for both parties and believe this is why the wage subsidy scheme was introduced. 

If we are successful in receiving the wage subsidy, we will pay this directly to the employees with each payroll and will not be retaining any of this for our own business. It will ensure that nannies receive the subsidy for the entirety of the lockdown period where they are unable to work.

Any unused funds will be repaid back to WINZ at the end of the lockdown.

When we initially paid the leave subsidy to those who had applied, we had received advice that the subsidy should be paid in full to the nanny.

Based on recent changes, this subsidy is taxable to the employee. This means that it needs to have the normal deductions (Kiwisaver, PAYE etc) removed from it and only the net amount paid to the employee. This means that nannies will receive less than the actual subsidy amount in their bank account.

To correct the payments already made, we will be including the subsidy as gross income in each nanny’s pay in their next payroll. We will correct the amount of tax that should have been paid and deduct this from the nanny’s take home pay. This should be offset by the fact that nannies have received two weeks in advance from the subsidy scheme.

To be able to access the wage subsidy scheme from the Government, families MUST continue to pay at least 80% of an employee’s normal wages. We would encourage families to pay 100% but this should be in discussion between families and nannies. Again, this has changed from the advice we provided last week.

If families are unable, or do not want to, pay at least 80% of the nanny’s normal wages then we will be unable to pay the subsidies on. This would have a large impact on nannies so we do encourage families to do their very best to at least meet 80%.

Another key change for the subsidy scheme is that nannies are unable to take annual leave to “top up” their hours to 80% of their normal wage.

Families can pay their families as “paid special leave” which will not impact on a nanny’s annual leave or sick leave balances. Essentially, families must pay the difference between the government subsidy and at least 80% of a nanny’s normal wage. 

A nanny cannot be made to take annual leave or sick leave unless this is agreed by both parties.

Some nannies have varying hours which may cause uncertainty around how to calculate what a “normal” pay is for nannies.

To calculate this, we will calculate the average earnings over the last four weeks to identify the average weekly earnings and determine what a normal pay is.

Where a nanny earns less than the government subsidy ($585 p/week fulltime, $350 p/week part time) then the maximum that they will be paid is their normal pay. They cannot be paid more than what the normal wage is, unless families are paying this themselves. 

A large portion of nannies have already received the 14-day leave subsidy but several nannies are yet to receive this as they applied later. This means that it will be unlikely to be paid with this week’s payroll as we are yet to receive this money.

Nannies who have not received this should have a conversation with their families as soon as possible if there is likely to be a shortfall in their pay.

Moving forward, payroll will look a little different for those who are not working during the lockdown.

Nannies can expect to see the following in their pay:

• The weekly government subsidy amount
• A top up amount from their families
• Less the normal deductions for Kiwisaver, PAYE etc
  

Families can expect to pay the following:

• Normal Pay The Nanny charges
• The top up amount being paid to their nannies
• Normal deductions – Kiwisaver, ACC etc
  

If a nanny is not working, they will not be required to complete timesheets as the payroll will stay the same until the lockdown finishes. Nannies will continue to be paid inline with their normal payroll cycle (ie. Weekly, Fortnighty, Monthly).