Compensation or to get paid for expenses

Hi there,

The situation is like this.

  • My cleaning lady doesn’t receive any compensation for her expenses (like petrol, things she does extra, like ironing my shirts, etc…) Is compensation a good word to explain this to the company she works for? or is it better to say:
  • My cleaning lady doesn’t get paid/ an extra payment for her expenses.

!! Compensation, isn’t that what you get when someone has damaged your car, or has physically and verbally absused you?!!

What would you say? @Arinker, @NearlyNapping, @Anglophile, @Torsten.

Thank you in advance. P.S.: I hope I don’t vex you, because I’ve been asking so many question lately. However, that doesn’t seem to be the case, because you all really take the time to read my posts.

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For expenses it would be ‘reimbursement’.
For extra time it would be ‘compensation’, or more commonly people would simply say ‘pay/paid’.

If she is working for a company it’s really between her and the company. I would not say anything unless you ask her first and she gives the OK. Among other things, the potential problem is that the company has a policy that she’s not supposed to discuss pay with the customer. Even if they don’t have a policy like that, it might come across like she is complaining about the company around a customer, which is never a good idea.

I have no idea about the laws in Belgium, but in the US travel expenses for something like this can be a tricky thing. If the travel expenses (use of car) are during work hours, then the company can optionally reimburse the employee. However, if she travels straight from home to your place, it might be viewed the same as driving to work in the morning. In that case there is no requirement or expectation to be reimbursed, unless it has been explicitly agreed upon ahead of time, which would be rare.

In the US the employer is not required by federal law to reimburse the employee (although there might be states that require it). Whether the employee is reimbursed or not, it’s a deductible expense on taxes for the employee/employer.

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Hi NN, it’s quite the same over here. My cleaning lady is not supposed to discuss pay with the customer, since the company she works for has a policy. If she doesn’t get it from the company, she cannot ask me for either reimbursment or compensation.
Thanks for your answer.

1 Like