helper hours?

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jamesandsimo

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Hi
can someone tell me what the legal hours are for a helper to work - i know monday - satuday, but how many hours per day? I looked on the government web but could not find.
Thanks
 
i might get shot at by posting this...

my helper get up whenever my daughter does, sometimes, 6, somtimes 7, somtimes 8. i've never really given her a bedtime, but she usually sleeps at around 10pm-10.30pm. my daughter wakes up quite a lot at night, so sometimes she attends to her, somtimes me. some of my friends helper finishes work around midnight & get up at 6.30am.

i try to give my helper 8hours of sleep every night. but i think letting them off at 10-10.30pm & requested them to get up around 7am-ish is reasonable.

you also don't have to give holiday on the weekends. it's up to your agreement. when i hired mine, she already knows that she's only going to get her holiday on a weekday.
 
Wow, Joannek your helper is very hardworking ! From memory you are the one with the mother-in-law who expects a 10 course lunch?

I think that different families and to a certain extent different cultures have different expectations. Also, I only work part time so that makes a difference.

3 days a week (usually Mon, Tues, Wed) our helper works from when I leave home (around 7am) to when I return home (6pm). She generally has dinner ready by 6pm and I feed the children/bath/bed/etc. My husband and I heat up the dinner later for ourselves. We have a dishwasher, so it is no trouble to put the dishes away and turn it on.

She also works one extra half day (Friday morning) to catch up on the cleaning that she can't do when I'm at work and she is looking after the girls.

She will also 'babysit' from time to time if my husband and I go out to dinner. We usually leave after the children are in bed.

So, she works 3 long days and one short day. And yes, we pay her a fulltime wage.

We always get up to our girls in the morning, we always get up to them at night. Our helper has never done this, never will, don't want her to. When I'm home, I like to have 'family time' without a helper. I enjoy playing with my children, cooking for them and looking after them. My children are my privilege, not my work. I don't always enjoy picking up their mess, but I do it.

I am not judging people whose helpers work longer hours, you have to do what works for you and your family. My personal view is that the helper is working and the hours should not be longer than I would work in my job, wherever possible. They are people too and need time to read/watch tv/chat to their friends/rest.

I don't understand people who let their helpers get up to their children in the night and first thing in the morning. You are the parents ! OK, sorry maybe I am judging, can't help myself.

But the OP asked for the legal hours - I have no idea. So far as I know it is an agreement between the employer and helper?????
 
Not sure if there's official legal hours...

We don't set a schedule for our helper, she just follows the baby's. She usually gets up at around 6, 6:30am, and finishes her day when the baby is asleep which would be around 8pm. Sometimes she work longer when we have friends over. She has 4 short breaks (3 meals + afternoon snack) and sometimes nap with the baby. My husband and I both work so we need the helper in her best shape while we are at work and she's alone with the baby so we would look after the baby at night to let the helper rest.

This work style works very well with our family. Both my husband and I really care less how she does her work, when she cleans the windows or what time she gets up or go to bed as long as she delivers what we need -- i.e. to take good care of the baby, prepare dinner and keep the house clean, which she is doing an excellent job. :yeah2
 
Ours works from whenever our oldest child gets up in the morning, usually between 7 and 8 til 7.30 at night with a break in the day - Monday to Friday. On Saturdays she works usually til 2. We also have a newborn for whom she does nothing. I could never let someone else feed my baby (or my 17 month old) in the middle of the night,it's just not for me. Same for putting them to sleep. I want to be the one to tuck them in at night.
 
jane01, you're right. but my in-laws hire 2 other helpers, one to cook & one to clean the house & do other chores. well, you know what, they came from a generation where their kids were brought up by chinese amah. she doesn't understand why i don't want the helper to sleep next to my child. my husband was brought up with a chinese nanny who slept co-bed (a bed that has another pull-out bed in the bottom, where the nanny sleeps, and so were their parents. my father-in-law & his siblings had wet-nurse!). in fact, a lot of my friends who came from wealthy families were brought up that way (co-bedding with a chinese nanny). so my MIL already thinks i'm attending too much to my child. she keeps asking me to take naps in the afternoon & let the nanny play with my daughter, and that i should not get up at night to attend to my daughter either. she also said she didn't understand why nowadays we went thru so much trying to bf our babies. the helper who attends to the baby is a nanny, and she only does things for my daughter: washes her clothes (in a washing machine & dryer) & eating utensils, cleans her toys & baby's bathroom, and play with her when i'm busy, carries the groceries & diaper bag when we go out. i cook for my daughter & husband takes bath with her. my friends said, so she really doesn't have much to do? my friends' helpers get up at 6am & sleeps at 11pm. comparatively, she has it easy.
 
It shouldn't be a question of what is comparitive - it should be a question of what is reasonable.

17 hours x 6 = 102 hours a week (plus all those extra times getting up in the night for young children.

Just as you said, your MIL comes from a different generation - if you have a wealthy family, then why work your help into the ground?

It seems like there are so many justifications for making DH work extreme hours: But never before have I heard of wealth as a reason. (more the other way around).
 
joannek - I always enjoy your posts (don't always agree with them). You give me insight into the rich and famous in Hong Kong !

Our next door neighbours are local Hong Kong Chinese. They are a family of three - father in China most of the week, mum doesn't work, daughter (10) is at school. She makes them breakfast and dinner, cleans the house/washes/irons/etc. She does work 6 days but I don't think the work is overly taxing. She has her own room with bathroom/air con/tv etc. I think she has it better than my poor helper who has to look after my young children whilst I'm at work.
 
joannek said:
oh, and that's why DH prefers to work for expats!
Click to expand...

um... I understand that some DH prefers to work for expats with the hope that the family will take her with them when they go back to their country. I also know there are other DHs who don't like working for expats because they usually have larger homes, more kids and pets to take care of. There are DHs who like working for local families and there are some who don't. I guess it boils down to the DH's own preference, her objective as well as experience?
 
A lot of local families hire DH because both parents need to work to make ends meet, not because they have extra buck to hire a cleaner/baby sitter. The parents usually work long hours, some work 6 days a week, some work shifts, so naturally the DH who work for these families work long hours too. I don't mean to say employers should make their DH work unreasonable hours, but I just want to point out that there are families who aren't as fortunate as many of us in this forum.
 
probably true too, ELT.

i think if the DH comes directly from the filipines to HK, it's just pure luck what kind of family & job nature they land on. of course, then there is the mentally disturbed who thru corrosive liquids in the DH's face (it was in the news yesterday)! & the wealthy lady who burn her maids arm with a iron several years ago & got away with it!
 
These crazy nuts deserve time behind bars! Unfortunately, the news only report negative stuff. There are some 300,000 foreign domestic helpers in HK, I'm sure majority of them work for sane employers in stable mental conditions.
 
(written from my husband's account)

my helper gets up around 7.00am and helps supervise dressing and the clearing up of it.

she has a proper sit down breakfast (albeit a short one) after the kids are out the door and i expect a one hour lunch when the kids are napping/still at school, and her work day ends at 7.30pm.

there are mornings where the kids suddenly decide to get up at 6.15am and our helper hears the commotion and gets up as well.

we are expats, and our helper is moving to canada in september (without us, as a nanny). she didn't take the job hoping we would move and take her with us (although that may be some helpers modus operandi), i think she took the job because the fit was good. i don't think it had to do with us being "western", it was because she was who she was, and we were who we are, if that makes sense.
 
We just hired to replace our current helper and we had two apply who categorically stated they only wanted to work for western employers so there are some out there like that.
 
I don't think our helper works with us because we will take her back to our home country. Australia doesn't allow it. If I had the opportunity I'd love to bring her back with us, but I doubt she'd go. She is 43, so when we leave HK she'll be over 50. I believe she wants to retire to the Philippines with her family when we leave.

Interesting discussion !
 
aussiegal...when we were looking you would have been shocked at the number of DH who, once they heard hubby is local, decided they weren't interested in having an interview afterall...
 
yes, locals have a reputation of being "meaner" (like me!!) & expats are known to be more allowing (shorter working hrs, no house rules, no uniform, etc). if you know what my DH's house rules are, i'll get shot at again (can a person die twice in cyberspace?) =)
 
carang said:
aussiegal...when we were looking you would have been shocked at the number of DH who, once they heard hubby is local, decided they weren't interested in having an interview afterall...
Click to expand...

our DH flew to HK on same flight with another filipina, who was also first time working outside Philippines. She saw her again after ~2 months, at parknshop... she was shopping with a western guy, who had his arm around her. If he's the employer, I hope he doesn't have a wife!
 
joannesk - why do you think there are such differences between locals and westerners?
(BTW - I count myself very firmly as both Westerner and local.....)
I think a lot of it comes down to not only what we expect when we emply someone, but wat we expect when we are employed ourselves.
 
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