Posted by
wiesje
13 yrs ago
Hello all,
I recently moved to Hong Kong with my husband and daughter (almost 2 years of age). We were lucky to find a helper through a friend: she's a nice lady from the Philippines, a bit older (50+), who is warm and friendly. I have also been told she's a great cook, so I am quite excited!
She will be starting in a week's time and suddenly I feel a bit out of my depth. Back home, I worked as a professional with a secretary and we had a cleaner that came in once a week, but other than that I have never been an employer. I became friends with both my secretary and cleaner and so the relationship wasn't strictly professional anymore, but I have been told that's not the way forward with domestic helpers.
Therefore, I turn to you, hoping that you can enlighten me on how to start and maintain a good working relationship with a helper. IF YOU COULD GIVE ME ONE TIP, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
I understand that every person is different and every situation is, etc, but can you tell me what helped you in having a good relationship with your helper?
I would love to hear from you!
Thank you so much,
W.
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I was in your position last year. The best advice I can offer is to have good long think about what kind of relationship you would like to have with you helper and how it will impact on your family. I see that you 'befriended' your previous cleaning lady. For some, they find that treating their helper as part of the family, sharing meals with them etc., works best for them. For others, they find that having a proper employer/employee relationship works best. Having someone living in your home on a full time basis can, for some, be difficult to get used to. I have a wonderful helper who I employed from my good friend when she left HK, so I knew who I was taking on. Not having had much experience with full time/live-in help before, I basically followed what my friend used to do and our helper was treated as part of our family and shared our evening meals with us. However, I soon came to realise that this didn't work for my family, as our family meal times are when we like to talk and discuss things, often things that we wouldn't particularly like to discuss in front of our helper. Consequently, we ended up no longer talking at dinner times and our meals were over with very quickly, when previously we liked to linger over them.
Happy to say that our problem has now been rectified, thanks to lots of helpful advice from people on this site. Our relationship with our helper is now a very good employer/employee relationship with lots of respect from both sides ... but for us, not family or friend.
So, in a nutshell, with regards to every aspect of having a helper, start as you mean to go on, because things can be tricky/awkward to change afterwards ...
Good luck!
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My one tip: Your helper is an employee. Never forget it. Be respectful, cordial, even warm. But never forget that you are the employer and she is the employee. This doesn't mean being cold or mean, just that you can never be true friends. Try to imagine you are not at home but in an office. She is a new hire and you are her manager. How would you go about things? Planning, setting expectations, giving feedback, dealing with issues, praising good work and giving constructive criticism for less good work.
There's a book called "Hiring and Managing Domestic Help" that goes through things pretty much from interview to planning to relationship and so forth. You can find it in most bookstores that have a good English section.
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@bunny boiler, who are you to judge the OP?
Certainly many have helpers as a luxury, but what's the problem with that? If you employ a helper you are buying time. Time to do other things. For us, one of those things is having more quality time as a family. Is that so wrong?
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Thank you, Sapphire and Axptguy38 for your helpful comments! I think I should lean more towards the employer-emploee relationship than I am naturally inclined. Your advice confirmed that.
Bunny boiler, I do not have a full-time job yet, but I realised quickly that I will not find one (and yes, that is firmly the plan) and keep it, unless we have a helper.
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It really depends, you will know which one would work better when she's there. Filipinos are naturally family-oriented and loyal so its pretty easy to fit in your family. Employee-employer rel'p is good though especially when you need to give instructions and pointing out certain issues.
But if you don't really need one then dont get a live-in. Of course it's always nice AND convenient to have someone do the housework for you (we all hate it!) but its a good bonding activity as well and teaches our kids to be independent by being a good example. I mean, if you are not planning to stay in hk forever then you shouldn't get used to having a helper.
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Live-in is by far the easiest thing economically since an FDH must be live-in by law. You can get a legal resident but it's nowhere near as easy and typically costs more.
I don't think the fact that one may someday leave should mean not getting used to a helper. Why should we give up our helper because we should someday leave? We'll deal with that change when we get there.
As for kids being independent, you can still make them do chores. Ours certainly set the table, fold their clothes, make their beds and other things. In fact these tasks are assigned by our helper.
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Another point to help you consider how to make this work better is about the cooking. The new helper probably knows how to cook, but she doesn't know what your family likes to eat or your personal styles on eating either healthy or in seasoning. Help her to make out some menus and give her feedback on what she cooks. If it is too salty tell her nicely,not enough and so on...
Many girls I speak to say this is one of the hardest things to handle. The sir liked the fish, but the Maam did not. Who's tastes does she follow? She can't read minds, and doesn't want to prepare food the family doesn't enjoy. If she is Filipino, she will take a fair amount of pride seeing the family enjoy her cooking.
Best wishes for a good experience
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For me, I try to not ask the helper to do more than I would, if I was the one staying at home taking care if the house. I work part-time (Mon and Wed) so I alternate with my helper in taking charge of my lil one during the week. It's a nice reality check to help me remember that it's hard to accomplish much when you've got a preschooler underfoot. So i try to ask for simpler meals and less housework duties on those days when she has to take care of my son as well. I also try to do my own chores (putting clothes away, cooking my own breakfast, cleaning up after/with my son etc). It helps keep the relationship pleasant and balanced, as having a non-family member living with you all the time means you're bound to run into rough spots every so often.
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wiesjie, I was in your situation last year and just like you did, I asked around about how I should put the new helper in my life - friend, family member? We first treated her like a close family member, but it didn't work, our helper at the time was very secretive and kept distance from us, I had no problem with it. Then I found the best way is to treat our helpers like a colleague, we don't have to be good friends but keep a relationship that's professtional, respectful and diplomatic. It also depends on your helper's personality, so better just wait and see what kind of person she is first. For me, the first week was so awkward having a stranger staying in my flat, after a month or two I got used to it. That's is just Hong Kong life!
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Dear all, thank you all for your very helpful advice! I esp. like LiamHK's tip to treat her like a colleague - that makes a lot of sense in so many ways! She'll start tomorrow, fingers crossed it will all go well! Thanks again, your encouraging words are much appreciated!
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Colleague, yes, but junior colleague (ie employee) just as you would any more junior member of your team at work. You are the boss, you have certain expectations of your employees and their performance. There may be occasionally tasks that you give them that need your guidance and support to achieve, especially the first time (hopefully not the second or third time) or even tasks that you will all need to muck in together to achieve.
Ultimately though at some time in the relationship you will be required to make a decision that you can only do if it is clearly understood that you are not their best mate but their boss; and it may be as mundane as a disagreement over a holiday dates, or some thing more in the realm of declining to lend her money, or even firing her.
Good luck
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All as I can say is contract, contract, contract. Make sure everything is in writing, with a review date say after 3 months. Then you can change it, amend it as you see fit. Include, hours, duties, pay, airfares, time off, any extra night time babysitting, conditions, food provided, Any extras food items to the value of, telephone & internet usage, international travel with family etc.
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