Ground Rules for helpers at beginning of employment

Dear all,

I have now purchased a copy of "Helpers Helper" as recommended on this forum which I am hoping to put into practise.


I am quite a relaxed, easy going person. From what I have seen of the helper I am about to employ and from verbal references I have had from her previous employers, I know she is very hardworking, cares passionately about what she is doing, and seemed to handle my son very well but I can see she can sometimes be a bit headstrong.


I really want to channel her energy and also ensure that I keep channels of communication clear and open, so I wanted to lay some ground rules / house rules before we start.


Has anyone done this before / do you have any suggestions on what I should cover? I know I wont be able to cover every eventuality but I would like to have a main checklist to avoid possible misunderstandings in the future.


So far, I have seen the following issues come up


Lending money

Taking Saturday off / Saturday night

What the maid does in her room and issues of privacy

Friends/ Visitors in maids room

Smoking / drinking alcohol

Food and food allowance

Keeping passports - is this even legal?

Curfews?

holiday- do maids get all the red days and then annual leave - what is annual leave entitlement?

Sick leave

Bonuses & discretionary payments

Levies

Using the landline phone

Taking my child outside the immediate complex and vicinity

Anyone got any other ideas?


Also, anyone got any ideas on mobile phones - obviously dont want to be a dictator but has anyone got a sensitive way of dealing with this?


What are your thoughts? I had thought we'd work these out as we went along and that I didnt want to want to make anyone feel uncomfortable with too many rules. However,looking at these forums, I am starting to think this relaxed attitude might lead to misunderstandings and ambiguities. I am hoping I can sit down and discuss this list with my helper to be before she starts and agree some ground rules so that we can build a good, working relationship.


Really appreciate your help with this one

Give her a written set of guidelines definitely. And as for mobile phones I realy really really recommend that you are very clear from the beginning that when she is working you do not want her chatting on the phone - of course there may be family emergencies (but again, be careful here - her definition of family emergency and yours might be different). If you are trying to contact her and she never answers it will drive you mad. If she's chatting she will not be paying full attention to your child (of course I talk on the phone when I am looking after my child, but I am in a position to make that decision - as an employee she is not). I gave my helper some very general guidelines which if I can find I will post. My helper lives in a seperate flat (in the same building) and I have no concerns about what she does in her own time, also she can have friends over and do as she pleases when she's off, but I did put down things about us not lending money, about her calling us early enough if she's sick, and about how if she has personal problems she can tell us and we will try and help but she is not to use them as an excuse for crap work/attitude. All of these things came from a previous bad helper experience.


When I started work with my company I was given a handbook telling me what was expected of me. It is reasonable to treat your helper the same as a normal employee.

Foolservy, you are unbelievable. You dictate your helper's hairstyle and how she does her nails? You worry about the extra gas she uses for cooking? You check every garbage bag the helper takes out?


Surely your posts are wind-ups

Of course most of Fools post is silly, but the hair issue is valid I think. At work I am required to have my hair tied back. I work in an environment where food is prepared and this is a basic hygiene issue. My helper ties her hair up for work.

If she has long hair I would put down - when working, please keep hair tied back. Simple - all these things, if you put them down on paper you could avoid an awkward situation later.


I also wrote down that our helper needs to be contactable so I don't really want her using our phone. Nothing to do with phone bills - you are employing someone to take care of your family - if you trust them enough to do this then you shouldn't be concerned about the phone bills.


The rest I assume is a joke.

Hi everyone, thanks for all the helpful advice. So many things to think about when you are planning for somenone to live in your home. If you do have anything in writing (geiboy) that I can adapt for our family, then this would be really helpful.


The phone issue is a big one isnt it? My helper has said she will keep the phone on and pick up to say she'll call back out of work hours if she can depending on what she is doing. I've said that's fine but we will review this and make sure this happens.I have said that we will review the rules and have a 1/2 hour meeting each week at least for the first few months to see how we are progressing and for her to raise any concerns. We will then reset the groundrules.

I guess this will be a probation period for us both!

Thanks again for the wild and not so wild ideas - at least it gets me thinking about how I want the relationship to develop between our family and our helper.

General Employment Guidelines



Salary

HK Labour Department minimum wage: HK$3400 per month, payable into your bank account on the last day of each month. We prefer not to pay salary in advance.


Holidays

One day every week (Sunday, unless other day arranged in advance).

All Hong Kong statutory holidays (12 days a year – see attached list for 2006-7)

7 days’ annual leave after each full year of employment, to be taken at a mutually convenient time


Working hours

As needed. Most days you will start at 7am, and finish when we have returned home and the house is clean and tidy. There will be some evening babysitting required. These hours may be changed if necessary.

After you finish for the evening, we will not call you except in an emergency.


Meals

You may buy your own food using the housekeeping money (please put details in the shopping book and leave receipts), or use food /ingredients from our kitchen. In addition to your food you may also use the housekeeping money to buy household cleaning products, toilet paper and hand soap for your accommodation.


Accommodation

We will provide accommodation with bed, fan, clothes storage, bathroom and cooking facilities. Currently this accommodation is on the 1st floor; however should our living arrangements change your accommodation may also change. Currently the flat is shared, and one room is used for our guests/storage. Please keep this flat clean and tidy, and inform us immediately if there are any problems (for example water leaks) or damage (for example broken windows after a typhoon).


Healthcare

We will provide employer’s liability insurance which covers you in the event of an accident at work. We will also pay for any necessary medical treatment – please keep all receipts from doctors/hospital consultation.

We will ask you to attend a medical check-up before starting work with us – this may be repeated in the future.

If you have any health problems that will affect your work, please inform us immediately so we can help. If you are unable to work when you are sick, please give us as much notice as possible so we can arrange for someone else to take care of X.


Job responsibilities

1) To take care of X(and the new baby), taking responsibility for his health, safety and development.

2) To make sure our household runs smoothly, is well-organized, safe and hygienic.

3) To assist in meal preparation, shopping, laundry, gardening and pet care as and when needed.


General conduct

We expect you to be cheerful, trustworthy reliable, truthful and honest. If you have any problems (for example related to your health or family) that might affect your work, please tell us immediately so we can help if possible. As we both need to work, we need to be told in advance if there is anything that might prevent you from working efficiently.


House security

Keys: Please take good care of both sets of house keys. On your day off, please leave the ground floor house keys at home (don’t take them into Central).

Before leaving the house please make sure that you have closed all windows and switched off the gas cooker and oven.


Telephone

We need to be able to contact you at all times, and so would prefer that your personal phone calls were made and received after working hours. Of course we understand that there may be urgent calls that you need to receive, but please try and limit these.

When you receive calls for us, please make sure you write down all the details and inform us if necessary

Please only give our home phone number to family members for emergency purposes only.


Household work

We will provide you with guidelines on when and how to do various things. These guidelines are to help make your job easier. If there are any problems with the way we suggest you do the cleaning/cooking/laundry, please let us know and we will make the necessary changes. The daily checklists are to help you get to know what needs doing in the house. From time to time, for example when we are away from Hong Kong, we would like you to do some more thorough spring cleaning - we will give you instructions for this.


Breakages

We understand that things get broken and damaged, but please tell us if you find anything is broken or not working, so we can fix or replace it.


Shopping and other expenses

We will give you a list of all the food/household items that we need all the time. Please make sure that we always have these items in the house. Other shopping will need to be done according to meal and other requirements. Please write down what you spend in the book, and leave receipts when possible in the bag with the shopping money. Please keep a running total in the book showing how much shopping money there is left, so we can make sure you always have enough. If it runs out please tell us.

For other non-shopping expenses (for example X's playgroup, or ferry/MTR fares if we ask you to come into town on your work days), please just follow the same procedure – take the money from the shopping money and write down in the book what you spent. This is how we can keep control of our monthly household expenses.


Questions?

If there is anything you are not sure about or can’t remember, please ask us! You can call us at work or on our mobiles, or just ask us if we are at home. We will give you a list of emergency numbers, of people you can call if you cannot reach us.

And as a first-time employer of a FDH you might be interested in the following links that contain a wide range of very useful information:

http://www.immd.gov.hk/ehtml/hkvisas_5.5.htm

http://www.immd.gov.hk/ehtml/faq_fdh.htm

http://www.labour.gov.hk/eng/public/wcp/FDHguide.pdf

I can't consider a fan an 'extra', sorry.


Sorry if I didn't explain what I posted - this is not my DH's contract - her contract is the standard one from Immigration. What I posted are the guidelines for her time with us - what we expect of her and what she can expect of us. As I will provide a fan, if it breaks she can ask me to fix it.

WHAT I POSTED IS NOT A CONTRACT!!! It is employment guidelines.


They were only put up as someone requested advice.

As I said, my helper has the standard contract. This is not enough to ensue a smooth working relationship. This is why I provide her with an extra set of guidlines.

geiyboyi, thank you so much - this is so helpful.

That's exactly what I wanted some guidelines/ groundrules to help things work smoothly. I have a contract from an agency- it looks like the standard one.


Wrt issue of pay, I was told also only to put minimum salary on contract and agreea figure above this. What are your thoughts on this?

Agree - don't put more than the minimum on the contract, and unless you have already agreed to it I wouldn't offer to pay her more at all until you've seen how things go (speaking from experience here...) - if she works out well you can give her a bonus at the end of a month/3 months/ year/ contract. I know it looks low at first but really the monthly salary is not bad (my last helper left HK to return home where she now owns 2 properties outright, at the age of 32. Not bad on $3300 a month or so). If you pay more but it doesn't work out you'll resent it.