Training your maid

[clarsson]

Dear all,

After many years in Singapore I have found that we spend a LOT of time training our helpers (over the years we have changed a few times), and each time we have to go through explaining very basic household knowledge like how to iron, how clean various things, that equipment used for cleaning toilets CANNOT be used to clean other parts of the house, food hygiene etc etc.
After a couple of rounds of this, I actually structured all of it electronically work schedules, plannings, instructions on what and how to do things around the home - basically an e-training, which I found really quite effective to ensure that the basic knowledge is there. I just wanted to ask everybody out there, whether it is only I who experienced this "problem"? If so, how are you approaching the training aspects? Many thanks in advance for your ideas and comments!

[x9200]

Are you selling or intending to sell a product supporting the training of the helpers?

Moderator

[sundaymorningstaple]

As (s)he has been here "a long time" I have to assume most of their maids were pre-trained. All the new maids are trained by supposedly certified trainors either in their country or here in Singapore before being assigned to an employer. I have to to agree the poster does sound like they are building an app though. Especially as they are posting from a UK ISP after being here "for a number of years".

[x9200]

No personal experience with l-in maids but from the posts on this very forum this pre-training seems not sufficient. For sure the part time maids *here I am overexperienced) are not well trained and actually I had many thoughts before to tackle the problem systematically. I have some ideas how to do this but as the true intentions of the OP are not clear....

[clarsson]

Dear all, thanks for your reactions. No, that was not the intention (could maybe be a good idea though!). For the IP, I suppose that this is just how my company's infra-structure is organised - I have no idea.

Not sure why people are so sceptical to share ideas - obvouisly, if you have no experience with live in helpers, then the potential exchange is limited.

[x9200]

It's very simple: poor attempts resembling yours to sell some products happen here frequently.

[clarsson]

Well, I'm sorry that so is the case. I do not have anything to sell, but want to share with others on the best ways to train my helper. I would for example be interested if there is a good training available (as I find most agency trainings to be limited or insufficient. Anyway, thanks for your replies.

[Hannieroo]

I've there's a company called expat solutions that do course such as cooking and housekeeping but I have no direct experience.

Personally, I gave up on hiring maids with no expat experience, I used to do pages and pages of training and had to micromanage and it killed me. If I have to be that involved I'll just do it myself. The lady I have now has 16 years expat experience and I'll only had to tell her our personal preferences not train her in the actual job. I love her.

[x9200]

It has to be heavily micromanaged and there is really no significant difference between pt- or l.in-maids. And by micro I don't just mean some guidance. You go place by place, spot by spot and point to a specific task that has to be done. Nanomanagement is probably a better word. Any generalization does not really work well. Saying, please ensure you clean the space around the kitchen tap in the area it connects to the basin, will not be translated to any bathroom taps. Etc etc. All these things are pretty much house specific (from the robot programming perspective).

[Brah]

It has to be heavily micromanaged and there is really no significant difference between pt- or l.in-maids. And by micro I don't just mean some guidance. You go place by place, spot by spot and point to a specific task that has to be done. Nanomanagement is probably a better word. Any generalization does not really work well. Saying, please ensure you clean the space around the kitchen tap in the area it connects to the basin, will not be translated to any bathroom taps. Etc etc. All these things are pretty much house specific (from the robot programming perspective).

Agree it has to be at this level, but even this didn't work when we had one. She would still, when not watched, step on the kitchen counter with her dirty bare feet and not use a newspaper or something to stand on, still wash the mop out in the kitchen sink, still use the sponges used for non-food things on the dishes, and a whole host of (we consider to be very) unsanitary things she was taught not to do.

If they're not wired that way they will just do whatever is easiest to them if they're not watched, and when caught, you'll get the litany of "sorry sir/ma'am".