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Margaret Short Sierakowski has written a book about hiring a domestic helper.  The author writes, "Our family was transferred to Singapore by my husband’s company in 1989 from Middlebury, Connecticut. For nine years, I taught classes for AWA, ANZA, the American Club, British Club and other expatriate groups in Singapore about the Hiring and Managment of Live-in Maids in your Home. Even people who are perfectly level-headed in the office strangely find themselves at a loss when they have to hire full-time domestic help for their homes.  This book will assist your family in the business of putting together a logical, intelligent plan for a new employee who will live in your home."  To contact the author - Click Here -   Additional Resources Living in Singapore  Working in Singapore Investing in Singapore

Changes in health, career or marital status often result in altered circumstances for the whole family.  A family can be resized, relocated by a single development or event.  Some of these changes may lead the family to consider hiring full time domestic help for their home.  Maybe an infant is born to a couple who both have full-time jobs and help from the extended family is not available for one reason or another.  Maybe the family’s breadwinner is suddenly posted overseas and the family becomes an expatriate household in a country where hired help is easily procured.  Maybe an accident or illness results in one family member requiring full-time care in the home.  Then there is always the chance that an aged parent may need to come to live with the family and so on.  Any of these situation could describe your circumstances.  In all these various situations a live-in maid can be so valuable.  Stress can be lessened by having more than one person attempting to handle all the complex household duties.  There are so many situations that are made less stressful with a second pair of hands.  From the daily chores in the maintenance of a clean home, the laundry, the shopping for and preparation of meals for the family, to the physical care of family members, each task is time-consuming. While the hiring of a part-time maid can be a fairly casual affair, having a full-time live-in maid is quite a responsibility due to the fact that every aspect of her life must integrate into your family’s routine.  We know the convenience of having a full-time maid.  Yet there is always some apprehension.  We must become the smart, clever, eyes-open employer.  Two of the initial major concerns are with possible loss of privacy and trust of this new person.

The organized family is the most desirable family in which to work.  An organized work environment will ensure that the maid can become a vital part of a team trying to accomplish the goal of making your home a smooth-running operation.  Far too often new employers are initially kind, thoughtful, generous, empathic and friendly, to a fault.  This person is an employee in our company and our company’s well being must come first.  This company is your family.

If you always treat this business of having a maid in your home as you would your own company, there will be less confusion and less frustration for all.  There are many errors made by the inexperienced employer in their first attempt at hiring a live-in maid.  These errors can be easily avoided by making the business of hiring  a maid a “serious employment effort”,  one with rules, regulations and a particular working style.

Once you establish the concept of “The Family Incorporated”, you will view this entire exercise not as a frightening, uncertain or irksome venture, but from the standpoint of a company hiring staff to meet its manpower needs.
 

The Employment Plan What is the Employment Package we are willing to offer?  What is a job benefits package and what should it include?  Have you set up a salary incentive plan based on job performance? If the work ethic starts to slide what safety measures or checks have we put in place?  Do we encourage a mandatory saving plan?  Are we going to provide health insurance and how much.  What is her daily work schedule?  Do you have questions concerning privacy and home security? What is her home leave entitlement or holiday package? If things do not go as well as hoped for with an employee, this book provides guidance in how to deal with such situations. What are the grounds for dismissal or termination of her contract?  Your worker must know how and under what circumstances their services will be terminated.  Before the hiring, you must provide your new maid with their copy of a job contract outlining both the employer’s responsibilities, as well as theirs. Finding your candidate One can only gauge a person for a job if there is a scale against which to measure that person’s abilities.  Drawing up a list of attributes that this person will need to possess is a good guide as to what sort of employee you will look for. The job of appraising how closely a given candidate comes to fulfilling these attributes is made much easier by your family organizing their thoughts.

The Interview
The process of interviewing potential candidates can be a  tedious challenge. Do you know what characteristics you should be looking for?  What are the proper questions to ask?  Do you know what answers to questions negatively “red flag” a candidate during an interview?  What are some of the answers that should give you some degree of confidence in this particular job candidate at the interview?  Each candidate comes with a completely different level of abilities gained from their previous job experiences.  You must sift through job applicants and decide which prospective employee has the talents to accomplish the job your family is offering.

Training and Orientation
Many expats fail to see that the careful training of this individual is so important in the resulting employee’s efficiency and success. Before letting a maid enter your home, it is necessary to lay out a training program.  A consideration undertaken by all new employers is how closely to supervise the employee’s work in this initial period. In order to keep their attitude cheerful and ensure that they continue efficiently in their duties, a salary incentive plan becomes a true necessity.

Another consideration is how to approach the maid with your concerns during the evaluation sessions. Here you will find a suggested, proven training program to allow your new employee her greatest opportunity to succeed. After making the final decision as to the best candidate, this new employee must be acquainted with a tentative daily schedule of tasks to be performed. Depending on where you live, there may even be a certain dress code that would be expected of a domestic worker.
 

The Employer’s Responsibilities  In the case of an employee working under your roof, there is an umbrella of legal and practical responsibilities that fall on the employer.  Foremost to the domestic employee salary.  In this book a normal salary is discussed along with how it is paid, and what other benefits are expected from the employer versus those that are optional.  The food situation is always a primary concern of the maid especially if their nationality is other than your own. Whether you are required to provide health or dental insurance is another consideration that must be examined. Children Many expats moving abroad also have children of varying ages moving along with them. Depending on the approach taken by the employer, this can be the deciding factor of whether the live-in maid is a success  The care of children must be taught very carefully, considering they may not have had the same experiences as we. Teaching takes time, effort and patience.  This book will help you guide the maid in the handling of the authority it is necessary they have over your children.  We want to hire someone the children will respect and someone we will trust with their safety and care while we are out of our homes.

Your guidance and teaching must be put forth in a clear, concise manner.  This training period is the time in which you shape her into the type of employee you need and want working in your home. Having a live-in maid while living abroad can definitely be a very positive and rewarding experience for Americans who find themselves in a new country.  However, the more effort and planning that go into this arrangement, the more assured you can be of positive results.  Your first step was the realization that any new venture in which we have little to no experience, needs guidance.  In the pages of this book you will find the guidelines written for Americans abroad attempting to accomplish the task of hiring and managing a live-in maid in a smooth, efficient manner.
 

Hiring and Managment of Live-in Maids in your Home by Margaret Short Sierakowski.    To order the book - Click Here -  Or write Landmark Books Pte Ltd, 30-A, Temple Street,Singapore 058575.