The leave request arrives on WhatsApp while you are between meetings: two weeks in December. Your first thought is not “no”. Your first thought is logistics.
Who will do the school-holiday routine? What happens on the days you are still working? Who will be in the house? Can your parents help? They are in Cape Town. Your sister has her own children. You have just moved to Johannesburg, and the support network you used to rely on is suddenly hundreds of kilometres away.
| Sometimes the hardest part of approving leave is not the leave. It is the empty space the leave creates in a household that was already running at full capacity. |
That is why our second Nanny Recognition Week conversation is about time. The week is still unfamiliar to many South African families, but the idea behind it is useful: recognition includes allowing someone to rest without making their absence their own problem to solve.
What the supplied SHC research says about leave
The original fact-check material states that domestic workers are entitled to annual leave and also sets out separate sick, family-responsibility and maternity-leave provisions. The draft it replaces listed at least three weeks of paid annual leave for every 12 months worked, with additional rules around timing and payment. These legal figures must be re-confirmed against the current legislation before the article goes live.
The question the law does not solve for your household
The legislation can tell you what leave is due. It cannot do the 07:00 school run. It cannot cover a client meeting that runs until 18:00. And it cannot tell you who you will feel comfortable leaving with your children while your regular nanny is away.
This is where many households fall back on an old solution: “Please find someone to stand in for you.” Sometimes that works perfectly. A trusted sister or friend comes in, everybody agrees, and the family is comfortable. But it can also transfer the employer’s staffing problem to the person who is supposed to be taking leave.
A stand-in is still someone entering your home
For a family that has previously had a difficult nanny experience, this matters even more. Trust is not restored by saying, “She knows someone.” You may want to meet the stand-in, understand her experience, explain the children’s routines, and know exactly who is arriving at your gate on Monday morning.
We think leave cover should be planned with the same seriousness as a handover at work. Nobody would disappear from a critical role for two weeks without dates, responsibilities and continuity being discussed. A home deserves the same forethought – without turning it into a corporate office.
A practical leave-cover plan for a busy household
- Talk about likely leave periods early, especially around December and school holidays.
- Separate the need: childcare, school runs, housekeeping, pet care or a combination.
- Decide what can pause. Not every task needs a replacement.
- If you need a stand-in, arrange and meet that person before the leave starts where possible.
- Write down the household routine: school times, meals, allergies, emergency contacts, access instructions and what “done” looks like.
- Let the person on leave actually be on leave. Avoid turning every missing detail into a WhatsApp question.
The Johannesburg reality: your village may not live nearby
A lot of modern Gauteng households are building careers and families far from the relatives who would once have absorbed these gaps. A move from Durban, Cape Town, Gqeberha or another province can turn an ordinary leave request into a genuine support problem. That does not make the leave unreasonable. It means the household needs a backup plan.
This is one reason SHC thinks beyond the single placement. A family’s support needs change. There are seasons when a permanent nanny is enough, and seasons when temporary or additional support becomes useful. The important thing is not to wait for a crisis to discover that the household has no second option.
Recognition means being able to leave without guilt
For Nanny Recognition Week, this is the idea we want to leave with employers: time off should not feel like abandoning the family you work for. A healthy household-support relationship can hold two truths at once – your nanny is important to the functioning of your home, and she is still entitled to have a life outside it.
Over to you
When your nanny takes leave, who normally arranges the cover in your household? Is it something you plan together, or a conversation that only happens when the dates are already close?
