Why do my Balinese employees ask for so much time off?

As an employer, the first thing you have to remember is that Balinese will always put their community and religion before their job. The reason for this is that if they are not active in the community, the community will not support them when they have a ceremony, a problem, a dispute or when they die. Balinese believe that when they die they need the proper ceremonies and rituals to assure themselves of a better next life. Cremation ceremonies are large, expensive events that both require a lot of effort and money; it would be difficult to complete the appropriate rituals without help from their community. So when Balinese say that they would feel embarrassed if they couldn’t help out with a particular ceremony, perhaps in the back of their minds they are actually worried about the community helping them in the future.

Most Balinese will try to organize their time to fit in all their ceremonies and community commitments with their job, but this is not always possible. Also, because Balinese don’t have a habit of keeping a diary, they will often forget that they have a ceremony coming up. Asking for time off at the last minute can cause conflict in the workplace and can lead to loss of credibility and even job loss.

I believe that as an employee you need to understand which ceremonies require a lot of time off, if any. If your staff member is young with no family then the community commitments will be a lot less. Also, if they have moved out of their village they have more excuses to not help out in their distant community. Perhaps it is a good idea to ask a prospective employee about their community commitments before they start working for you; this will hopefully lessen conflict and misunderstanding in the future.