Annual Leave Question -- Urgent

Our helper has been with us for a year and half and we are very pleased with her. When she was with us for about seven months, we took a two week holiday, at which point she said she'd like to go back to the Philippines. Although she hasn't been with us for one year, we agreed. She bought her own air ticket at the time and was away for about ten days.


In January this year, we planned another holiday, and asked if she'd like to take time off too and offered to buy her ticket if she decided to. She then took another 6 days off.


Now as we are planning our summer vacation, we said she can take off while we are away, but will not pay her salary or ticket, some issues appeard. She expressed that it was not really her annual leave if she did not choose her own dates, and expect us to pay her 2 weeks of salary in lieu of annual leave at the end of the contract.


Is this fair? Although she didn't choose the dates, we did not force her to take vacation and if she were to stay in HK, we would have paid her salary. We offered to pay her her ticket back in Jan also as a kind gesture of apprecation.


Could anyone share your thoughts on this?


Thanks!!

It really depends on your arrangements. Did you mean to give her 2-week annual leave vacation on that 2008 10-day vacation plus January-2009 6-day vacation or were those days off "gifts"? If they were gifts, then she deserves a 14-day annual leave which you can grant during your summer holiday vacation. And since you've already paid for her return ticket in January, you don't need to pay for another unless it is going to be another "gift".


It's not true that it is the helper's annual leave if she chooses the dates. You're the employer and you can "dictate" the dates, but of course, it's for better relationship if both of you are happy with the arrangement. As long as you've given her 14 days of leave and bought her a return ticket from her point of origin, you've complied with the annual leave provision of the contract.

Thanks for your replies. I think the problem occured since the communication wasn't exactly clear between us and the helper when we meant "annual leave" and she expected to be "gifts". We said she could take leave (didn't say annual leave) while we are gone, typicall twice a year, and happy to pay her salary during these time. Do you think she took it as she'll be paide whenever the employer is gone, and another 14 days of paid leave at the end of contract?


I have hard time understanding the expectation issue here. Isn't it strange to expect your empolyor to pay you salary and air fare everytime the employer is on holiday?


Guess better to write down everything and make a record as suggested by 0ze_kid.

I would expect the same though. If I signed a two-year contract of employment, I would expect to be paid for the two years unless I take an unpaid leave. It's not the helper's "fault" that you're taking a vacation.


If you take multiple lengthy vacations a year, you assign one of them to be your helper's annual leave. That's what we do.


We give her the dates that we're going to be out of Hong Kong and let her pick when she wants to go home. She can't pick any date she wants not on the list.

Thanks for sharing this valuable information here and I will be more careful with my helper on this now as I haven't handed her tickets yet. My understanding is that you don't need to pay for her tickets since you already did once within two years and you do have to pay her salary, in the name of vocation or not, even if you won't be in hong kong for a while. I also guess it depends a lot on her relationship with you whether she will get a lot of cleaning job or have plenty free days.

"My understanding is that you don't need to pay for her tickets since you already did once within two years and you do have to pay her salary"


Correct. The ticket requirement is only at the beginning and the end of each 2-year contract. BTW note that the requirement is for door-to-door fare from your home to her home including buses, ferries and whatnot. Not just the air ticket.

Thanks for all who have written back. I had a talk with her and told her the paid leaves she took in the past and in coming July are her annual leave, so there will be no 14 days of paid annual leave after 2 year contract. All togher that's 31 days of paid leave already!! I don't get this much paid vacation from my employer. She accepted it after I laid all the facts out.


I think in general, there's issue of expectations, esp for those helpers that work for expat famalies. Our helper gets way above average salary and food allowance, long paid vacations, and shorter working hours each day. Yet I noticed she has such a strong network with almost every philipina domestic helpers around her.. those in our builiding, from previous aptartment, those she met at our chirlden's play centers.... And they seem to openly share all information amonst themselves. It almost seem like information imparity as they know how to play the card well.


Personally I know I need to work on having better and clearer communcation with her and try document everything. That would be the take away for me from this incident.