In the Asiaparents Forum, there is a discussion on training maids and how to lay down guidelines for them.
For me, I made the mistake of not really training my 1st maid. Nor did I lay down any rules for her from the beginning and I was quite lax with her, because she came at a time when we were busy with moving and I was so tired with my 2nd pregnancy. So after a while, she started to turn “bad” in terms of work performance, attitude, manners etc. When I tried to be strict with her or correct her, she couldn’t take it because I was too lenient from the beginning. So we decided to let her go after 1 solid year.
I learned from my mistake.
Before my 2nd maid even stepped into the house, I had already printed out 5 pages of guidelines and a timetable. I sat down with her and went through item by item, covering things like strict rules on money matters, honesty, behavior, manners etc, to specific things to note for individual chores.
Instead of putting it across like some unreasonable controlling boss, I explain them in the way that I am actually protecting her interests. Eg, I would share with her stories on how some maids were cheated of their money by fellow maids, or how some men are just interested in their body and money, and constantly remind her of her purpose of coming Singapore to work, which is to earn money to support her family back home, so don’t get distracted along the way.
Then for the next 1 week, I literally became a maid! I woke up at 6am with her, went through every single chore together with her, showing her exactly how each chore is to be done, sleeping at 11-12am when she turns in. (she could rest, but I couldn’t cos Toria was still waking through the night for night nursing!) After that 1 week, I was exhausted! But it paid off. She went on clockwork, just needing a little guidance here and there.
To quote my friend Stephanie’s words – XIAN1 XIAO3 REN2 HOU4 JUN1 ZI3 (sorry, still trying to figure out how to be able to display chinese characters in wordpress – anyone can enlighten?)
Applying to this situation means to be super strict from the beginning. Chore-wise, plan for her to do everything possible. So that down the road, when you reduce the workload, she is grateful. Rather than the other way round….she will be grumbling behind your back if you increase her workload.
So many mummies requested for me to share my guidelines document. Here it is, hope it will be useful for you. 
Wow! I must say….
I’ve got a maid who’s been 7 days with us now and I was wondering how to lay out her timetable. I wish I knew about this website sooner!!
Thanks for sharing. Although not everything was relevant (of course), it’s a good template i must say!
Glad that any of these can be of help.
Very detailed & useful! Thanks for sharing this template…
Wow, I really applaud you for taking the time and effort to run through the guidelines and training for your maid.
A maid is after all your employee, much like any other worker you see in the company so it’s good to lay down the rules and expectations like what you would expect in the office.
Your efforts certainly paid off, well done!
Wow, could I hire you to come over and train my helper? You should offer your services because I have been looking out for such a service and I can’t find any snd the maid agencies are never really able to do the job and when working full time one really can’t find the time to do a good enough job.. By the way, your guideline is excellent it will help me tremendously, I just have one question what does your maid generally cook for lunch and dinner? The other question is does she cook a separate meal for your kids?
Thanks a bunch!
Thanks for all ur kind words.
As for food, I didn’t and never left it up to my maids. Instead, I have recipe books with either bahasa indonesian or tagalog language alongside english.
Choosing from there, I made my own excel sheet of a list of 20-30 soups, veges, meat and side dishes and she cooks according to it.
My son is 3+, so he eats whatever we eat. My 11mths old daughter, unless the meal contains food unsuitable for her, otherwise she eats the same like us too!
Hi,
Found your guidelines really useful.
Is it possible for you to share your excel sheet of receipe with us too?
Was wondering how to go about telling her what to cook.
Hi Dawn,
I just bought Chinese recipe books from Popular. Those small A5 size ones with translation either into Tagalog or Bahasa Indonesia type, and just asked her to follow it. Quite straight forward, for me, I can’t really cook, I also just follow those recipe books.
Hello, thank you very much for your sharing and the guidelines. Here’s the chinese character
å…ˆå°äººåŽå›å. I am not familiar with wordpress so I not sure if it will appear correctly.
Thanks and thanks again. Being new to the FDW and helper scene this advice has been priceless.
Am glad that i found this. It’s really really helpful. even after 3 yrs. Thank you for sharing.
Thank, very useful
Wow! Thanks a lot!
Thank you so much for this checklist template.. I’m totally at a loss and my maid ran away coz she’s bored.. aiyo.. very useful and glad the search got me to ur blog.. =D
Thanks a million for sharing your guidelines. I had a lot of heartache with my recent maid as I was lenient and too nice with her from the beginning. I did a timetable like yours, in fact more thorough that yours, but I found out that she became so dependent on it that, when there’s a change in schedule, she will show her sour face.Not only this, she also tend to bang things like pails or throw table cloths to show her anger. Of course my mistake was that i didn’t warn her of possible changes. I was worried that she couldn’t cope when she first came, and only give her increase workload gradually over time. It was the biggest mistake.
Then again, I see that your maid seems free on Sat and sun (so many blanks on the time table from 12pm to 4pm) , is this her free time?
Many thanks for sharing this useful info! This certainly a great help to me!