A maid has a lot of role to play in getting you your peace of mind. In Singapore, you have two kinds of maids; the part time maids and the full time maids. A part time maid is a maid who does not stay permanently in the house and her work schedule is few days a week for several hours as decided by the contract. There are a lot of online companies in Singapore that readily provide such services, however, you as an employer need to know these 7 things before hiring a part time maid:
1. Know the pros and cons of hiring independent workers vs. hiring through cleaning companies.
Know the advantages and disadvantages of hiring an independent works vis-à-vis outsourcing your requirement to a cleaning company. One benefit of going with a company is that they manage issues like references, insurance and taxes and do not bother you with them. Some downsides of going for a cleaning company is that some companies cheat people by sending unreliable and unauthorized personnel as part time maids, leaving the employer in trouble. Though hiring an individual worker may involve a little more paperwork but you may find it easy striking an equation with an individual rather than a company.
2. Know whether you’re employing a legal part-time maid or not.
There is no single formula that can find out if the maid is legal or illegal. One way to find this out is to ask the maid about her Ministry of Manpower or MOM license or any such legal document that tells you that she has obtained a work permit from MOM. Such work permits last for two years in cases of FDWs or Foreign Domestic Workers. In case you opt to hire the services of an agency, it is the agency’s responsibility to apply to MOM and get their worker a license. You must ask the agency if their worker has a MOM license. Statistics reveal that there are around 209,600 FDWs working in Singapore as of December 2012.
3. Know if there are any additional costs.
In most cases, it has been seen that people turn towards a cleaning company to get a part time maid for them and very few involve themselves in individual hiring. In case you go for a cleaning service and require them to handle your legal paperwork as well, you may need to shell out anything between $ 388 to $ 1,400. Cleaning companies differ in their policies on fees. There may be few agencies that have lower service fee but would include other charges like cost of maid’s first medical checkup, work permit fee etc while there may be others that have a higher service cost but include everything from air tickets and insurance to medical checkup and other miscellaneous expenses.
4. Know for how long is the guarantee period.
There are companies that offer a free replacement guarantee within 3 months to one full year. If you do not find the part time maid suiting your work requirement, you can ask for a replacement within the stipulated time period.
5. Know the number of replacements allowed
Most companies in Singapore have a capping on the number of replacements of the part time maid that they will allow. This is important to know because this is something that finds place in the fine prints of the contract and may trouble you in longer run should you be unfortunate enough to enter into a deal with a bad cleaning company.
6. Know the language compatibility.
It is very essential that you are able to freely communicate with your part time maid without any language barrier. With many part time maids being from countries around Singapore, it is important to carry out a language compatibility check before you go ahead with hiring the maid.
7. Know her credentials.
Once you know that both the parties have a common language to communicate in, take your maid’s interview. Ask the maid about her experience in this industry and any references that you can check to ascertain her standard of work.
Knowing these 7 essential things about hiring a part time maid you are certain to hire a legitimate and efficient domestic help, either from a cleaning company or individually. Next time when you browse through the websites of part time maid providers in Singapore, you will be able to make a wise judgment on who is reliable and what is not.
