Professional Documents
Culture Documents
by Julianna Abad
Contributor, MaidSearcher
YOU WAKE UP ONE DAY AND FIND OUT THAT YOUR NEWLY HIRED MAID OF FIVE DAYS IS NOWHERE IN SIGHT AND HER BELONGINGS ARE GONE.
This is the scenario that too often happens in a typical Filipino household. Six in every ten Filipino families hire help in the person of a maid, yaya (nanny) or driver. With this high demand for household help, turnover rate is growing as helpers quickly "jump ship" from one employer to another, until they are satised with either the salary, benets, or living condition being offered by another employer. Unfortunately, that leaves the former employer in shambles, frantically searching for a new maid. How do we avoid the stress of constantly looking for a new maid? How do we search for the perfect maid for our family and know that they will be a keeper? How do we steer clear from the opportunists or deviant (pasaway) ones? We asked several groups parenting and hiring organizations to name the most common maid-hiring mistakes they nd, and provide solutions to each. The good news is that some of the most frequently made missteps are also the most preventable.
who may not be concerned about your family's welfare (only their own) and thus will refer someone who do they not know personally. What to do: Only get referrals from close friends or family who will generally be motivated to help you nd a good helper because they care
the right one for your needs. If not, then look for another one. Remember, it is your family's safety and security that will be on the line here. This basic act of getting as much information about your potential helper is the most important step. Next, be sure to conduct a face-to-
for you and your family. If you will hire from a maid agency, make sure that your friends have experience hiring from that agency and get their feedback.
In the Philippines, the most common way to hire helpers is to get through referral. However, most, in their rush to look for a maid, will get referrals from questionable sources like other helpers or acquaintances,
or a family member who referred the maid to you about the latter's background (location, age, education, previous employment, NBI clearance, etc.) will instantly provide information if the helper is
face interview. And, by interviewing the prospect we get a lot of information, not just from her answers but from non-verbal cues as well (i.e. facial expressions, mannerisms, and other habits). According to Malcolm Gladwell, in his best-selling book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, "we think without thinking, we thinslice whenever we meet a new person or have to make sense of something quickly or encounter a novel situation. He says, Snap judgments are, rst of all, enormously quick: they rely on the thinnest slices of experience they are also unconscious.... We thin-slice because we have to, and we come to rely on that ability because there are lots of hidden sts out there, lots of situations where careful attention to the details of a very thin slice, even
3. DID NOT CLEARLY EXPLAIN OR COMMUNICATE THE JOB REQUIREMENT AND RULES
4. NO TRAINING
Most employers expect newly hired help to be able to know how to do
(For more tips and to search our extensive listings of maid, yaya or driver job seekers, please join us at MaidSearcher.com.)