Holidays for Domestic Help and Nannies

Once summer is over, we are now on the stretch to the
end of the year and quickly approaching many holidays,
specifically: Labor Day, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur,
Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, New
Year's Eve and New Year's Day.

If we have household help whose work schedule should
fall on any of those days, we must decide how to
handle the holiday with our employee.

Here are the options:

1) Provide the day off as paid
2) Provide the day off as unpaid
3) Employee works with regular pay
4) Employee works with overtime pay

The holidays mentioned above are mostly considered
standard federal holidays. However, Rosh Hashanah and
Yom Kippur being Jewish holidays are not usually
provided to domestics. On the other hand, the others
(Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and Day, New
Year's Eve and Day) must be considered one way or
another and discussed with your employee.

So your first decision is to decide which option do
you want to provide. You can treat each holiday
individually depending on your needs and your
generosity. It is completely discretionary in the
household industry to give holidays as a benefit.

You should be aware, however, that the standard practice
in the industry is to provide all 6 major Federal
holidays (New Year's Day, Memorial Day, July 4th,
Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas Day) off with pay.
You may choose to give the day off unpaid for those
who want to celebrate with family members. Therefore,
the employee would not be paid for the day, but would
be happy to be able to take it off. Again, you simply
need to think carefully about the individual holiday
with respect to your needs, your budget and how you
want to structure a benefit package for your employee.
This is best decided at the inception of hiring an
employee and should be documented in an
"employee/employer" agreement.

Here are some questions that employers frequently ask
with respect to holidays that might apply to you along
with my advice.

Question: In a corporate setting, usually the day
after Thanksgiving is also provided as paid. However,
I do not think this should apply to household help.
What is the standard practice?

Response: True in an office setting, although very
often the day after Thanksgiving is provided as paid,
this is not standard practice for household employees.
However, keep in mind that if you decide to take
these days off for a long weekend and do not need your
employee, it would be only fair for you to pay for
these days that the employee is forced not to work.

Question: On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, I often
have a big party and desperately need my housekeeper's
assistance. She, however, celebrates on these days and
wants them off. How do I handle the fact that I need
her but she doesn't want to work?

Response: For most of the Christian world, and
especially the Christian Latin people, Christmas Eve
is one of the most important holidays of the year. If
your employee must have this day off (paid or unpaid),
you can always consider finding additional help who is
available to work on this holiday. Agencies usually
have a list of employees that work holidays. You would
have to pay more when hiring on these days for
temporary help, but it would be well worth it in order
to keep your full time employee happy.

Question: I don't really like providing paid
holidays, but I know that I should provide at least
one or two as a perk to the job. If only selecting a
few, which of the standard holidays should I provide
as paid?

Response: If you are unwilling or unable to provide
your employee with ALL the Federal Holidays as paid,
the ones that you most definitely should consider are:
Christmas Day, New Year's Day. These are the most
common holidays provided to employees.

Question: It really upsets me that an immigrant who
is not a legal resident wants some of these federal
holidays off and paid. Why should these be considered
"their" holidays?

Response: First of all, we are all immigrants to some
degree and certainly those of us who are legal to work
here and contributing to the workforce, should be
allowed to join in on the celebrations of national
holidays. It is not a question as to whether or not
the holiday can be labeled as "mine" and "not yours"
depending on your heritage or immigration status. The
fact remains that we are all here to work and
hopefully integrate together into this country in
every manner. Acknowledging that an employee who has
not yet reached citizen status should not be granted
the right to celebrate a national holiday does not
encourage integration.

There are many different approaches to handling
holidays and you may choose to handle each one
differently. Whatever your choices, please be sure to
discuss each one with your employee at the onset of
hiring and to document the manner in which you plan to
handle holidays so that there are no misunderstandings.