Christmas Present

This is our first Christmas with our helper and of course we would like to get her a present. My husband feels that in the spirit of Christmas we should buy her something nice for herself, he is probably right technically speaking. I cant help but feel that she would appreciate a Christmas card with some money in it instead.


What is everyone else doing? We would love some feedback as ultimately we really appreciate everything she does for us and want to give her something she wants.


Thanks!

reserve the money for chinese new year. you can get a nice lotion or something as a token.


remember don't give anything extravagant like fone, too much money, as she'll expect more the next time around

We are giving our helper a small bonus and I know she loves handbags, so we have bought her a small handbag from my shopping trip in Shenzhen.


I won't be giving a gift at Chinese New Year for two reasons: 1. we won't be here as we are still away and 2. as Huggy said, she is Catholic (so are wel) and celebrates Christmas not Chinese New Year. Even if we had been here, I would not given a gift. It's not apart of our culture, nor is apart of hers.


We are very happy with our helper, but that doesn't mean I have to lavish her with gifts and/or money for every holiday that happens in this country. I don't get it from my boss, this is exactly the same, she is my employee.

i agree with neenib.


there are far too many domestic helper nowadays who are demanding ludicrous things just because their former employer showered them with expensive gifts and benefits or because their friends's employer are generous.


there's many ways to show our appreciation and there are a lot of tokens of gesture like a ticket to the cinema for two is a great gift idea


my boss does not give me a car or a free trip to europe for good work either

Thanks for all of your suggestions everyone. They have been most helpful.


Merry Christmas!

Another good tip, if you only want to give a token gift and have children, I suggest you write on a card from the children and have them give it to her.


That is what we do for our helper's birthday, we bought a couple of little trinkets and necklace from the Jade Market. On the card my child wrote from her and her brother. She was very happy. You could do the same for Christmas, particularly if you have not had your helper for very long.

Also, depends, has your helper been with you the full year or a couple months or weeks? If it is very short term, I would get her a nice simple gift to open, NOT a months salary

Agree with neenib. My helper is my employee not my friend. Why would I give him a months bonus when thats more than I would spend on my own kids at christmas. We don't buy an expensive gift either, again why would I spend more on them than my friends or family. Last year we gave $500 in a card. I think presents like nice toiletries is a good gift, something that they would not buy for themselves. Money will just get sent back home.

For CNY we give a token amount in a red packet, I am not Chinese and neither is my helper.

Just beacuse we cannot afford expensive gifts does not make us mean employers, there are other ways to show you appreciate having a helper. We will definately give at least 3 days off so he can go and celebrate with his friends.

"I dont know why other people always think that being generous to a good helper is not proper as they will expect more the next time around. For me, thats not true because different helper, different personality. If you sincerely appreciate her help, then she's worth for it. Not all helper are good but lots of helper are also sincere, honest and really work hard."


I don't disagree that a good helper deserves better treatment, maybe including a bigger holiday gift/bonus. On the other hand, it's nothing surprising that employers are concerned about managing an employee's expectation. A management course/book, as well as common sense, will tell you that downward adjustment of benefits is quite destructive to an employee's morale. Therefore, if an employer starts with giving fat benefits and later on wants to reduce that for whatever reason (employee not good enough, employer unable to affort it anymore, etc.), the employee will almost certainly have a negative thought about that change. That's just a natural reaction from most ordinary people in the position of an employee, not just helpers. For exampl, even in the current crisis days, a lot of people are still groaning over receiving no/little bonuses this year (in contrast to previous years), even though in fact still having a job is probably the biggest bonus they can have right now.


That's why people here often talk about keeping things under control when it comes to bonus, fringe benefits, etc. given to helpers, just like our own bosses are thinking about the same towards us all the time. Of course here we are talking about families that do have budget for things; there are, of course, rich people that can always afford bigger gifts/bonuses and don't have to worry about whether the helper is worth it or not.


Of course if you have a helper who's been with you for a long time, is very good, and whose personality you know very well, the employer will probably feel more comfortable giving bigger benefits without worrying too much about expectation going out of control in the future. For the OP, it seems that her helper has not been with her for that long; therefore I agree with neenib and cd that a gift/small bonus instead of big cash may be more appropriate; later on if you feel happy with her you can always ncrease it year by year. That's what I'm planning to do with my helper (who's also only been with us for a few months) anyway.

Miao miao I agree. What is holding me back is the worry that if I give a generous bonus one year when she's worked well and then if her performance goes down the next year and I give her a smaller / no bonus she won't like it and may be very grumpy - which is not fair because if she maintained her performance the situation would never have arisen. If I didn't have this worry I would certainly give my DH a big, fat Christmas bonus, even though I do budget and am not a rich employer.

You have to give your helper an incentive to work towards.


At the start of our helper's contract I said if she worked well and we were happy with her performance, then we would give her a flight home on full pay for 4-5 weeks even though she is not entitled to any leave as she has been with us for less than a year. That's dangling the carrot and she knew what the end result was and she wanted it.


As noted above, we are giving a small bonus to top it off because she really has been great. However, whilst we would still send her home regardless of performance, for holidays as we are away ourselves, if her performance throughout the year was poor, then I wouldn't be sending her home with pay. As it is, it's worked out well so I am happy and she is happy.


These helpers are our employees, so there is no need to worry about if she gets grumpy, either ignore it or tell her to get over it. You are not obliged to do this and that is what your helper needs to know. They can't get money for nothing.