For most people, especially those who are living in Singapore, hiring a part time maid is really tempting. The most common reason for this is that, hiring a part time maid means that you don’t even need to worry about your privacy, because a part time maid wouldn’t stay in your house, but would leave after the cleaning job is done. Unfortunately, part time maids aren’t as promising as most people have imagined. In fact, they could even give you a headache, especially if you’ve hired someone who’s unprofessional. Aside from that, here are some of the reasons why you should never pay for part time maid agency fee.
Risk in Terms of Workplace Safety and Security
Paying for the part time maid agency fee wouldn’t give you a guarantee that you could prevent the anomalies and you’d be secured. Truth be told, there’s always a risk that you’ll unknowingly hire an illegal part time maid. For instance, the moment a maid is hired by a cleaning service agency, that agency would have the right to assign her to a client who’s requesting for a cleaning service. Considering this, the maid’s work permit would be the reflection of the cleaning service as her employer, not the private individual to whom she does her cleaning duties. If caught, this could cause you a lot of trouble, and the employer, as well as the maid would be suffering from penalties too.
Trust Issues
Usually, part time maids come to the house they’re going to clean, a couple of times a week. During this, they should perform the duties given to them. However, not all people trust the part time maids being assigned to them. As a matter of fact, they even see to it that they’re present while the maids are performing their respective duties. Though, there will also be instances where a part time maid would arrive the moment you need to go somewhere else. Whenever this happens, you should have the privilege of canceling the appointment, especially if there isn’t any agency fee asked. This would prevent you from getting stressed, nor having a hard time canceling the appointment. Although this would cause some inconvenience to the part time maid assigned to you, being the owner, you should try to explain the reason why you need to cancel the appointment, and maybe set it to another day.
It Is Somewhat Illegal
In Singapore, hiring part time maids are prohibited, and that’s the reason why a lot of citizens don’t even dare to use this kind of service. For one, if you’ve ever been found guilty of hiring a part time maid, there’s a huge possibility that you’ll need to pay a huge amount of cash, because of the penalty. Additionally, workers aren’t allowed to work without the permission of the Foreign Domestic Worker department, and as a house owner, it’s always advisable to just apply with this department in order to ensure that you’re going to enjoy the services of a professional maid coming from the said department.
Most Don’t Have an Experience
Truth be told, a lot of part time maids are people who have little to no experience, especially in performing household chores. Oftentimes, they are the people who are desperately seeking for a job and they’ll be willing to perform any job that they could grab, as long as they’re going to get paid at the end. Not just that, believe or not, most of these part time maid don’t even know how to handle most electrical cleaning equipments and appliances typically found in a Singaporean home. Thus, there will be a lot of accidents where your appliances would break, because of mishandling. Considering that, it defeats the purpose of why you even thought of hiring a part time maid– because you’d be spending more, just to buy new appliances. A lot of time would also be spent, just to teach these workers on how to use certain appliances that they’re not even familiar with. If you’re a busy individual, this could really be bothersome for you. Lastly, there’s a huge possibility that you wouldn’t even be satisfied with the kind of service they’re going to render. So, why even bother shouldering the agency fee.
Unreliable Assistants
A part time maid only comes to work for a short period of time. With that, it would take a long time before the employer and employee become comfortable with each other. On the other hand, if you’re going to hire a full-time maid, she’ll be familiar with the everyday duties that she must perform and the right way of performing them. Oftentimes, part time maids feel a pang of resentment toward their employers, because it seems like they’re underestimating their capabilities.
Non-availability
Due to the fact that part time maids only come to your house on a certain schedule, this could be a drawback for some. If a maid is not available the moment you need her, then it’ll feel like you’re wasting your money for nothing. You’ve hired a maid in order to relax and spend some quality time with your family, but because she works on a schedule, there will be instances where you’ll end up doing the chores that the maid was tasked to do. Hiring a maid without an agency fee isn’t recommendable either, because of the same reasons. Though, this time, you wouldn’t have any financial obligations to deal with, such as the replacement fee. With that in mind, what’s important when hiring a part time maid is the assurance that you could trust her and you’d experience a top quality service.
Lastly, here are some of the things that you should remember upon your search of a part time maid:
– Even though the job description is a ‘part time’ maid ensure that the person is licensed and have the accreditation papers.
– The maid should be insured by the recruitment agency.
– Ensure that the recruitment agency would be responsible and accountable in case that something bad happens during the service.
– Only choose a reputable hiring agency that’s credible, has gained a good reputation that’s supported by actual data report and testimonials coming from their customers.
