Posted by
Ed
17 yrs ago
The reason for this is that not only are many of our members using this channel on our site to find a helper - but most of the agencies are using this as well because it is by far the largest pool of helpers for hire in the city.
The best candidates are likely getting many interviews and many offers.
Please support our advertisers:
Ed
17 yrs ago
Warning - sarcastic comments will result in an account suspension.
Please support our advertisers:
Like everyone else FDH's are, understandably, looking for what will suit them the best. This is the situation with many employees and this same situation exists in the workplace as well. But for the helpers this is compounded by the fact that their place of work is also their home and they have to spend 6 days working and living there - although in the case of most this is 7 days. So being picky is more understandable in this situation and they deal with it as most others deal with it. They ignore it. But most people do not have experience of being employers and take it personally.
So this is a process that can be long and arduous. Why do you think they are not taking the contract? There has to be something that does not quite clinch the deal. Try and see if you can understand what it is and work on it. You'd be surprised - could be an overbearing or strict personality, could be that kids are older, could be location, could be the job description or expectations. These are just a few examples.
Please support our advertisers:
Usually they tend not to say No so that they can keep the option open. They are afraid if they say they will consider, it will mean that they are not keen, so that employers would not employ them. Therefore get them to sign as soon as possible and process the application as fast as you can when you find one whom you really want to employ! Also from experience going through a good agent is more effective and efficient; and I had no maid who changes their mind from an agent. However, when you find them yourself through the internet or referrals from friends, I often had helpers who change thier mind with no reason given.
Please support our advertisers:
mrsl
17 yrs ago
evildeeds, I believe that everybody here accepts that it is to be expected or even encouraged that FDHs think carefully about accepting the job that best suits them. You say that 'most people do not have experience of being employers and take it personally'. I must disagree, I would think that most of us had lives before children and have plenty experience of being employers (many posters manage both simultaneously).
I had plenty of people turn down job offers in my 'previous life'. Nobody ever did so through a third party or worse still by not returning phone calls. People always had the courtesy to tell us directly rather than via a headhunter or radio silence that they were rejecting a job offer. Only in the world of HK FDHs have I seen people turn up well over an hour late for interview or not at all, without so much as a telephone call. One friend had someone accept a job, disappear when it came to signing a contract and then show up at her door for work months later when the job she accepted did not work out.
Again, every employee should choose their 'perfect' job and negotiate their terms as best they can, but an ounce of courtesy goes a long way.
Please support our advertisers:
mrsl - I couldn't agree with you more!
Please support our advertisers:
mrsl, you have then been very fortunate in you "background". Very few people have actually been "real" employers, and by that I mean employ people directly in their own companies. You see many supervisors and their ilk, but very, very few people have had the experience you describe. As a current employer in HK, over 4 and soon to be 5 companies I can tell you the situation as it stands today. And my original post above stands the test as it represents experience in the past few years up to and including the current time.
I can assure you that this is not just an FDH phenomenon. We have had interviews where candidates have not turned up, bothered to call to inform us and cannot be contacted. This is frustrating when I have scheduled the interview team to be at a certain place at a certain time which can cost me 10's of thousand of dollars. We have people who accept job offers and then never return the paperwork, etc and disappear. This is not unusual in this region but you learn to deal with it. It's one of those things! Many other company owners I know here and in China suffer the same problems, especially after CNY when they can lose 50% of their workforce with no notice whatsoever.
So again, I reiterate that you have been extremely fortunate but the corporate situation here today is not the rose tinted view that you have of your "previous life". That statement is in no way detrimental, it just means that things move on, they change, there are difference from region to region, from industry to industry. And expats themselves are just as bad, if not worse in some industries than others.
Please support our advertisers:
evildeeds,
I find your comments, responding to mrsl, patronising to say the least. Her work experience is neither "fortunate", "extremely fortunate" nor "rose-tinted". She makes an observation, based on her experience in the work force, which is no less valid or "true" than your own.
The bottom line is that it is common for FDHs not to notify employers of changes to the agreement and that this is rude and frustrating behaviour.
We shall have to take your word that it happens in other industries/fields of work but it certainly doesn't happen in mine (maybe I am similarly fortunate!). The fact that it does or doesn't happen in other fields doesn't make it any less rude or frustrating for the prospective employer of a FDH who is left in the dark.
I also disagree that you need to be a "real" employer to understand that there is nothing personal in this lack of courtesy (or were you making a different point?). We all get that all employees are looking for the best deal they can get and that they themselves are under various strains and pressures.
Finally, if you are going to compare employment of a FDH with "real" employers, a more realistic comparison would be one where 100% of the work force failed to turn up/respond as agreed. I reckon you'd be pretty frustrated in this situation too!
In response to the OP, I too have found, as some-one else has said, that no-shows and failure to go through with the contract rarely (in my experience, never) happen with agency-contracted FHDs.
Please support our advertisers:
smallfry, they are not patronising words, just a fact of life. I find that people do take things more personally with FDH that situations that happen in the workplace.
QUOTE: Finally, if you are going to compare employment of a FDH with "real" employers, a more realistic comparison would be one where 100% of the work force failed to turn up/respond as agreed. I reckon you'd be pretty frustrated in this situation too!
I don't really understand this point. An employee is employed for a specific job in the same way as an FDH is. No show is no show. If I don't have an engineer for a specific project for example then the project is a non starter and I lose. Simple. That's apples for apples.
Now if you want to look at an industry that is worse than FDH here in HK you have to look no further than the English Language market. That has to be the biggest market for no shows, people not showing up for interviews, not phoning or returning calls and not turning up for work at all! If you ever have the chance to experience this then you will understand how small a problem this is with FDH. And those rude, arrogant and ignorant no shows are all........yes you guessed it, expats. There is no denying it is frustrating but you have to deal with it whatever you do. And that is entirely my point, which everyone seems to miss.
And for your information we hired a new FDH within the last 6 months. In fact we offered the job to one and was accepted, although we had to cancel the application for her for other reasons. We then offered to another and that was also accepted straight away and she has been with us for a few months now. So my experiences have been a 100% hit rate, so maybe I should look at that perspective and say there is never a problem with FDH not turning up because I have never experienced it as mentioned above from others experiences in other industries?
Please support our advertisers:
As someone who has been both a 'real' employer by evildeeds' definition and a department head within large international companies, I cannot see his point. There is no differencence to me as to whether we recruit the right person in my own company or my department. The bottom line is that I benefit financially etc. from recruiting the right person.
Even without my 'rose tinted' spectacles on, I have to agree with mrsl. Courtesy is an international concept. I am not saying that interviewees are never late, but aside from DHs, they have always called to warn us (however spurious the excuses might be). We have had many many people reject job offers or renegotiate to the point that we could not meet their demands, but the have always done do directly.
When interviewing housekeepers and nannies in London, the same levels of common decency applied. Apart from helpers and language tutors, my recruitment in Asia has been of professionals, so I guess evildeeds would argue that I am comparing apples and oranges. So my wife and I asked our helper about this last night. She was the one to use the words 'rude' and 'inconsiderate' about the helpers who do not take the time to call or return calls, although she knows of people who do it. It is not just a cultural thing.
When an interviewee is late for a meeting at our office, it is not the end of the world as I have plenty to keep me busy at my desk and do not go to the meeting room until I have been called to say that he/she is in the building. When it happens at home, however, it is infuriating!!! We have so little family time at weekends as it is and the children end up missing out on activities on the back of us staying at home thinking that the girl may have been delayed on the bus etc.
And what on earth is 'the English Language market'? You seem to be in a most infortunate industry evildeeds. Must say that I am impressed that you can run 4 ir 5 companies and still have so much time to browse this site.
Please support our advertisers:
So we agree, evildeeds! who would have thunk it?
My point about the comparison was made in response to your comment that, in China at CNY, 50% of the work force may fail to turn up to work without notice.
In most HK households, where the FDH is the sole employee, it is 100% of the work force that has let the employer down when a helper fails to notify that she has taken a job elsewhere. The frustrating thing is the time that is wasted because you don't know you don't have an employee...
Southside, the English language market comprises language tutors/teachers in schools, private colleges etc.
While there are practitioners in this field who are professionals (and would never dream of not showing up without notice) , many back packers and itinerants who are native english speakers also get these jobs (which are often short -term contracts) to support their lifestyles. To this second group, the job is not as important as the lifestyle and I believe evildeeds when he says that the level of disinterest is high.
Please support our advertisers:
Quote: Courtesy is an international concept.
This has never been argued or doubted.
Quote: She was the one to use the words 'rude' and 'inconsiderate' about the helpers who do not take the time to call or return calls, although she knows of people who do it. It is not just a cultural thing.
Exactly! It is not just a cultural thing - nail on the head!
An interviewee being late is a lot different to one who does not turn up and does not call to cancel, especially when it's a team interview. People are a far distance from their offices sometimes just for this.
Quote: And what on earth is 'the English Language market'? You seem to be in a most infortunate industry evildeeds. Must say that I am impressed that you can run 4 ir 5 companies and still have so much time to browse this site.
One of my companies supplies teachers to schools as NET's and runs specialist and more mainstream courses. In fact this was my first company, obviously I have others run it now, as I do others and am about to do with my current company - I'm moving on to take over the next one. That's why I have time, because I have given so much of my time previously to do what I do!
An earlier post attributed no shows or not being able to contact people as a uniquely HK FDH phenomenon. My argument is simply that it is not. That's all!
Please support our advertisers:
FKKC
17 yrs ago
As I've said in another thread, those helpers that don't show-up for work, break their promises or just disappear are due to high bidders on the FDH market which is quite an unhealthy trend although to be realistic, who doesn't want a higher paid job but moral is also an important factor.
I pay my helper the current wage but I make up showing my appreciation for her work in many other ways but always without obligations - we are both happy!!!
Please support our advertisers:
FKKC ypu say it's an unhealthy trend that helpers are going to the highest bidder just interested but unhealthy for who ?
Please support our advertisers:
Talking of no show - I took my helper of three and a half years back to the UK with me for three weeks in the Summer and she went for her day off and didn't ever return which was absolutely devastating but....
Please support our advertisers:
i know of someone who lost 2 helpers that way.. I am all against holding passports - it is totally not the right thing to do, but if we ever go to UK (that is where it seems to happen quite a bit) - I (only half joking) said to my helper that I will keep her passport for the time of the holidays!! I would hate to lose her and of course the temptation is right there for them!
Please support our advertisers:
You must be logged in to be able to reply.
Login now
Copy Link
Facebook
Gmail
Mail