Need advice on terminating helper

1

1510

Registered User
Hi. I need some advice as i plan to terminate my helper and move back home. I wanted to tell her on the day before the departure (ask her to pack and leave immediately) as I have a toddler and a young baby, however, it is nearly impossible to pack our things and hide the fact from my helper. If i tell her much earlier, I am concern that she may slack in looking after my kids when I have errands to run. Any advice will be highly appreciated :)
 
legally u are suppose to give them a month's notice and tell her that u will give her the release on the day u want , that way she can look for a job also

we are doing the same with our helper
 
actually you have a choice, neha, you can:
1) give her one month notice
or
2) pay them in lieu of the month

it is option #2 that the OP is hoping to do.

however, if you are terminating her due to your own relocation, there is no reason for her to be angry with you. she will still be able to stay in hk for 2 weeks to look for another employer.

if i were you, i'd tell her that you are relocating and as such need to terminate her employment. tell her that you will allow her to interview for other positions within the next month so long as it doesn't conflict with your schedule. let her go to interviews so long as it isn't too much of an inconvenience to you.

if you are not terminating her due to gross negligence and she's an ok helper, i think it only kind and fair to treat her with kindness and respect.
 
you can give her one month's notice and offer to provide reference for her - written or orally - if her performance continues to be good in the final month.
 
i would give her advance warning. she is going to be wanting you to provide her written and possibly telephone references...chances are very good she will work hard until you go.
 
Thanks for the feedback. We plan to pay her a month in lieu. She mentioned on several occasions (to me and my mil) that she has no long term plan to stay in HK as she's tired of working overseas and she doesn't like the cold weather here. Hence, the reference from me doesn't have much value to her.
 
may not matter much now, but might still be useful in the future.

i would still tell her that you are planning on moving and giving her the month to work out. as you said, it will be impossible to hide the fact that you are preparing to move.
 
1510 said:
Hi. I need some advice as i plan to terminate my helper and move back home. I wanted to tell her on the day before the departure (ask her to pack and leave immediately) as I have a toddler and a young baby, however, it is nearly impossible to pack our things and hide the fact from my helper. If i tell her much earlier, I am concern that she may slack in looking after my kids when I have errands to run. Any advice will be highly appreciated :)
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advice: dont be selfish. imagine if your employer terminated you and ask you to leave the apartment on the same day.
 
Agree with the posters suggesting that you should give her 1 month advance notice.

Whether she loves working abroad or not, she may not really have a choice, depending on her family's financial situation back home. If she has been a good employee, I would give her the chance to find another job. She will need your reference and so will do a good job for her.

If she doesn't actually need to work but is doing so out of loyaltly to you, I'd say she then deserves the same in return.
 
Where is she going to go if you fire her and ask her to leave the same day? That sounds pretty surprising and actually cruel. She`s human, no?
 
actually, it is quite common to terminate and have them move out on the same day. there are many instances where helpers have gotten vengeful after being terminated

however, it seems like this helper is otherwise ok and the only reason for termination is that they are relocating.
 
They go to a boarding house after being terminated. While I agree that it's pretty cruel but if they are taking care of young children, I wouldn't take any chances for them to become vengeful or neglectful.
 
I agree, because most of the time, they did it to themselves. I wouldn't risk my baby's safety, too many cases of helpers' revenges on newspaper. Normal practice is terminate the helper and give her the plane ticket to leave HK on the same day.
 
Shenzhennifer said:
Where is she going to go if you fire her and ask her to leave the same day? That sounds pretty surprising and actually cruel. She`s human, no?
Click to expand...

Humans are selfish and vengeful too. I've had a helper for a few months now and also have seen many caring for young children around me. Their love/ attachment (If any) for your child is 'mostly' superficial which doesn't last a day after they leave.
 
Yeah, sure, work is work.
But regardless of it being common practice here (which is actually not so surprising to me the way I see how many people treat their helpers in public), to get fired and removed from your job on the same day, when the OP said it only had to do with being relocated, is cruel and unusual practice.
 
As you're re-locating its highly unlikely that your helper will harm your children. I would also give her 1-month notice and let her know you'll support her in finding a new employer. Give her a good reference and offer to speak to any potential employers.

Geomum, have to disagree with you on the attachment. Our ex-helper is very attached to our son, and she emails and chats with him often. She helped me raise him for 5 years, and we both feel she's part of our family.
 
we are leaving in June , Our helper who is not the best and has been with us for just over year already knows about it and is looking for jobs and she knows that we will release her on 15th June only when we leave. She is still the same with our son ( touch wood) . Our old helper who was with us for nearly 14 years is great she still visits our son. she bought so many gifts for him on his birthday
 
geomum said:
Humans are selfish and vengeful too. I've had a helper for a few months now and also have seen many caring for young children around me. Their love/ attachment (If any) for your child is 'mostly' superficial which doesn't last a day after they leave.
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'mostly' is a sweeping generalisation.

My helpers genuinely care for my kids and it is it quite evident that my friends helpers and many of those I see around me do also. Maybe we are just very lucky as a group.....
 
I think that we really need to make a distinction between a situation where a helper is terminated for bad behaviour and a situation where a helper is effectively made redundant because the family is leaving HK.

In the first instance, it's common to ask them to leave the same day and I can totally understand why.

In the second instance, I think it would be pretty harsh not to give as much notice as possible. Imagine how she would feel! Also, if she is atttached to your children she might need some time to get her head around you leaving. My advice would be to keep her informed, tell her she is free to go to interviews on Sundays and offer to speak to potential employers for her. If there is ever a situation where she will be vengeful it will be when/if she works out that you are leaving and haven't told her!
 
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