HOW MUCH CHRISTMAS BONUS FOR HOUSEKEEPER

Many households, which you may be one of them, need to have both parents working outside the home and really do need the help of a housekeeper to help with the cleaning and organizing of their homes so you employ a housekeeper.  Everything goes great but now as we are reaching the end of the year and it is almost Christmas time, you find yourself thinking, what about a Christmas bonus for your Housekeeper?

You know that you should give her a Christmas bonus, after all, she is the one that keeps your house clean, tidy and organized and because it is the right thing to do. Thinking about makes you sigh because you are not sure at all if a bonus should be cash, a gift, or both and if it is a cash amount then how much should you pay?

You do realize that she works very hard and spends a lot of her time away from her own family, which cannot be very easy for her to do. Christmas time is the time of the year that she can get excited to go home, relax and spend some time with her own family and for her to do that she does need a little extra money.

While you are thinking about what she deserves to be doing and getting, you seem to have all these different questions running through your mind, like what to do and what to give your housekeeper as a Christmas bonus. To be totally honest with you, you are making things very complicated and difficult for yourself because all you need to do is calm down and think a little.

Think if you were in your housekeeper’s shoes what would you like as a Christmas bonus? What would work best for you and I am sure that your answer would be mostly cash as a person can do a lot more with cash especially if they have extra commitments to attend to like Christmas shopping and school stationery for her children in the New Year?

Everyone these days no matter who you are or who you work for would like to have a little extra cash either in their bank or some physical cash on hand especially during the Christmas holidays. You must remember that although your housekeeper spends some time or a lot of her time at your home that she also has a home and family her own too and she would also like to spend some quality time with them and be able to buy them a few gifts for Christmas too.

Some housekeepers work only part-time for some families, they only work maybe 1 to 2 days a week at one house then work another 1 to 2 days a week at another house and are usually paid an hourly rate for their time. To calculate a bonus for a part-time housekeeper would be completely different from a housekeeper who works full-time for one family.

A lot of households have had the same housekeeper for a number of years and feel that they would like to do a little more than just give their housekeeper the normal cash bonus to say thank you and show their appreciation for all that they do and have done during the past year but find themselves struggling to decide on how to evaluate their housekeepers performance that would be reasonable and fair to her.

To help you decide, there are certain aspects you can take into account and they are:

General aspects to consider

• Does she work for you part-time or full-time?
• How many hours per week does she work for you?
• You can also consider things like, does she complete her list of daily or weekly duties without any issues
• How satisfied are you with her work?
• Look at the duties your housekeeper performs.

Take into account some of the basic duties your housekeeper performs for you like:

• Light cleaning like the every workday dusting, sweeping and mopping of all the floors in your house
• Cleaning all your bathrooms in your house which would include the mirrors, basins, toilets, baths, and showers.
• The washing, drying and packing your dishes away
• Cleaning the countertops and wiping the appliances off in your kitchen
• The washing, folding and ironing of your clothes
• Changing your bed linens and the making of all the beds in your house
• Separating and removing the garbage for you
• Picking up kids toys and other items laying around the house
• If she prepares meals for your family then how often does she
• Keeping track of the cleaning supplies you have supplied her with and letting you know when they are running low so that you can replace them

Are there any extra duties that she performs that you either ask her to do or she does on her own, going above and beyond her normal duties should be recognized and rewarded accordingly.

• Duties like keeping up with your children’s busy schedules
• Making sure that she is still there when your kids arrive home from school.
• Making your children lunches
• Extra heavy duty cleaning like washing windows, cleaning the fridge, the oven, and the furniture

Look at what your housekeeper may earn and any other benefits she may receive.

• Are there any other benefits that she receives from you like a room to board because she lives too far and spends a lot of her time working in your home
• Housekeepers do not really earn all that much if you actually sit and think about it, they earn anywhere from $15 to $40 an hour for part-time work.
• If your housekeeper works full-time then usually a flat fee has been arranged between her and you, her employer which can be paid to her per week or per month.

Now that you have looked at and taken all the above into consideration, you will need to decide if you will give only cash, a gift or both as a Christmas bonus for your Housekeeper.

Most people prefer to give a cash amount to their housekeepers on the very last working day they see them just before they take some leave for the Christmas holidays. Cash is generally the preferred method of payment of the majority of housekeepers as it is easier for them to work with cash as they might need the cash to stop for a last minute Christmas gift or pay for transport to take them home.

The best thing to do is to talk to and ask your housekeeper about how she would prefer to receive her bonus. Only you and your housekeeper will know what has been arranged regarding payment and how much, so only you can decide on how and what to calculate her Christmas bonus as

Before you decide on the amount that you will give her as a bonus, you must first consider the following:

• If your housekeeper is a part-time worker and only works a day or two a week for you, then usually the standard amount is double her usual hourly rate for the day. Which means that her bonus amount would be her daily rate times 2 for example if her rate works out to $50 for the day then it would be considered the norm to pay her $100 for the last working day that she works just before Christmas.

• If your housekeeper works for you full-time and receives a monthly payment then it would be safe to say that her bonus could be the same as a 13th cheque and you could pay her a full month’s wage extra with her last payment before Christmas.

A great idea for when you do pay her, her cash bonus is to purchase a thoughtful Christmas or thank you card and place the cash inside the card. That way it does not come across as being cold and impersonal and nobody would like to receive something as special as a Christmas bonus just handed to them in their hands with nothing to remember it by.