Any advice on this problem?

Hi all,


Our helper has been us for three years and generally, she has been quite good. The problem is that every 6 months or so she has a 'dip' and every area of work becomes quite sloppy and she seems to develop a bit of a bad attitude. The previous times this has happened, my husband and I have sat down with her with a list and told her of our expectations. In all honesty, we are a simple family, I take care of our two children when I am not working part-time and we take our kids out every weekend so there isn't much child-minding. We only have our dinner at home and it's the same few dishes which we rotate and there are never more than five ingredients to buy every day. All there really is, is the general cleaning of the house as she does all the ironing on Saturday. We are not fussy or demanding but I am finding it hard to draw lines so any advice on the below points would be much appreciated.


1) The finishing time for work was set at 8pm at the beginning but since we started telling our helper that she could leave when it was obvious that everything was done, the time she went into her room has been getting earlier and earlier. If everything is done, it's fine, the problem is that as soon as I return home with the kids, everything becomes like a mad rush, I feel like she is wanting us to get everything over with so she can go to her room and it's starting to make me feel like I can't wait for her to leave us alone either so I can breathe. I don't know if I should put the finishing time back in place...if I do, what should she do when she is done?


2) Over the past two weeks, she has decided to do things such as hoover and take a shower when I get back with my daughter after picking her up from school. My daughter comes back to nap so she can't sleep when our helper is hoovering and when she is showering and washing her hair, I get my daughter ready for her nap and put her down right before I have to rush off to work. The thing is, she has SO much time to do these things in the morning but I know she is deliberately choosing the time I get back to be 'busy'. I don't want to micro manage and tell her what time to hoover and when to have a shower but if I don't, she always ends up occupying herself with something she had hours to to do when I actually want her to help.


These are my two main problems, in terms of a changing attitude, she has started to text when she is meant to be watching our kids at the park and add her own items on our grocery list that don't belong to us. These things I can nip in the bud but in terms of setting times and micro-managing, I am not sure what is the norm. Any suggestions? I know she will revert back to her usual self once we have a chat but I don't know what to actually say and if I say it, I want it to be right so we are all clear. I am not a confrontational person and nor is she so there is quite a bad atmosphere in the house at the moment which I really want to fix. We are not considering termination. She is a good helper but I don't know why she keeps going through these phases.