Congratulations – you have successfully managed to hire a maid?
What’s next? While most employers think it is just their job to choose and pay for a maid, many do not do a good job getting to know their maids better, leading to maids leaving or maids not motivated to work their best.
Here are some tips for you to prevent this from happening.
Understand her dietary preferences
She may have certain dietary limitations due to her religion or her background. Understand these and take these into consideration when providing food for her.
Although your family may be having pork meals like Ba Kut Teh or Pork Knuckles for dinner, without catering for her any food, it may well mean she is not able to eat the meal (including the rice / staples).
Take care to order something small for her or have some meat in the fridge for her to cook in such events.
Understand her family background
By talking to her about her family at home, you can understand her motivation for flying hundreds of kilometres over here to work away from her family.
If she has a sickly parent or young children back at home, have some compassion to allow her more calls back home to check in. Although it is a fine line to not let it get out of hand, striking a right balance keeps her motivated.
Understand what she hopes to learn
Usually apart from money, the maid also wants to learn some valuable skills before going back to her home town. Understanding this can help you better align your expectation with hers and motivate her towards a certain end goal.
It can be any of the following:
- Cooking
- Baking
- Sewing
- Speaking english
- Speaking chinese
- Taking care of children
- Repairing of furniture
She is here to become a more experienced helper, mother and worker.
All in all, 2 years of a person’s life is not short – although we are paying for her monthly salary, we do hope that our helpers leave us better people than they were before.