NannyCast 37: Get Sent to a Nanny Conference // download episode // subscribe to NannyCast // This episode is all about how to get your employers to pay your tuition to a nanny conference or class, even if, and especially if, you didn’t negotiate professional development into your compensation package when you were hired. We cover step by step why you would want to go and how to structure the conversation with your employers. And even how to tell if they’ve said, “Please, keep convincing me!” without using those words. Because they never use those words. Additional Show Notes:NannyCast 24: Nannypalooza 2012 Career Talk Podcast: Professional Development NannyCast 11: Let’s Talk About Money, Our Take The Practically Perfect Podcast Swept Together: Episode 47 | All About The Ask The Atlantic | Askers vs Guessers Door Closing Audio Transcript after the break. I’m Nanny Jen, and today we are talking about how to add a professional development budget to your compensation package, after you’ve already started the job. This episode was inspired by the upcoming annual interNational Nanny Training Day event where a multitude of same-day, single-day, local professional development opportunities will be simultaneously attended by nannies around the globe, but is by no means limited to just NNTD. This can also be used for larger, longer nanny conferences such as the International Nanny Association’s conference or NannyPalooza. As a quick aside, NannyPalooza got featured in its own episode, Episode 24, which can be accessed by going to nannycast dot com and clicking on the “episodes” tab in the navigation bar. It will also be linked in this episode’s show notes. Now, in order to be a fully comprehensive podcast episode, and to mirror the pitch you would make to your employers, we are going to start with WHY you would want to engage in ongoing professional development. And to help make that pitch is [Stephanie Dennis host intro] She runs a podcast called The Career Talk Podcast whose full episode on the topic of professional development is linked in the show notes. [career talk clip] That last take home was short, sweet, and to the point. It benefits employees and employers. Which leads us in to our next portion: How to have the conversation with your employer. Like we started here, you start with how this will benefit them. And let me repeat that for clarity. THEM. How this will benefit THEM. Go in to this with the understanding that people are inherently selfish so they want to hear about how spending the money to send you to professional development will benefit them. And Steph gave us a good list of five ways which essentially boil down to that you’ll be better at your job which directly benefits them as the people who receive the results of your labor. AND, and how they react to this point is telling of your job overall, it increases employee retention. Meaning you stay working for people who invest in you. In fact, when we called for your nanny confessions as part of our book giveaway contest, we got an excellent confession that discussed National Nanny Training Day admission fee. To protect the anonymity of the confessor, we’ve stripped away the identifying details and substituted a voice actor, but you can still hear her upset which the voice actor faithfully duplicated from the original audio clip we received. [family never paid] It isn’t hypothetical that we nannies will leave jobs over professional development being unsupported, here is one concrete example being bold enough to state it for the record. And by the way, as an aside, if you ever want to contribute thoughts to NannyCast and don’t want your name or your voice used, we have a wide variety of ways to protect you as we protected this nanny. Please do not hesitate to visit nannycast dot com and click on the “share with us” tab in the navigation bar. If you need to when discussing a budget for professional development with your employer, feel free to point them to this
