Choosing a Maid Agency - 2 Important Checks Before You Proceed

By Rebecca Atkins

Maid agencies and partnering recruitment offices act as intermediaries between employers and maids. They serve an indispensable role in bringing together two distant parties, namely the affluent families who need housekeeping help, and the impoverished women who can offer their labour in exchange for regular income. Problems arise when maid agencies fail to provide this crucial link in a satisfactory manner. This article examines two common problems that prospective employers face when recruiting a maid from an agency.


1. List of maid bio-data is outdated

Most maid agencies do not maintain up-to-date information of their available maids. At first glance, their selection of domestic workers may appear comprehensive, complete with maid photographs, personal particulars and a brief description of their basic education, strengths and preferences. The sad fact is many of such information are outdated, and exist only to impress their clientèle of their supposed wide selection.

Shop-front displays and online maid agencies are especially guilty of this charge, as evident from their static maid bio-data showcase. Many agencies draw from a common pool of recruited maids, and post this shared bio-data without checking its current status. Some agencies do not intentionally trick their clients, but merely neglect to refresh their current maid selection in a timely manner. There are, however, agencies that deliberately highlight the better candidates among their past recruited maids, to create an illusion of choice abundance to their customers. A handful of agencies continue to advertise obsolete offerings from as long as five years back.

We advise prospective employers to treat the advertised maid bio-data as a rough guide, and always ask specifically for the latest available candidates from the maid agencies. Do not waste your time and effort to sift through countless bio-data pages, only to learn that your shortlisted maid is, in fact, unavailable for employment. Untruthful agencies may even pretend that your preferred maid was coincidentally chosen by another competing client, just hours earlier. One agency staff admitted to Maid Aware that she wasn't bothered with the extra administrative work involved in sorting the published maid list, since only a handful of customer enquiries handled will result in a "confirmed sale".
2. The maid agency that you deal with has a poor track history

We, at Maid Aware, are constantly amazed by the blind faith vested by many employers when choosing a maid agency. Few employers perform simple background checks of the agencies handling their maid recruitment, and suffer the consequence of delays, cost escalation and substandard service, when their chosen agencies fail to meet their basic requirement.

We are reminded of an old Czech adage on carpentry -- "measure twice, cut once". When choosing a maid agency, it pays to consult your local government regulatory offices, consumer associations, media publications, friends and relatives for their recommendations. Your objective is to identify the problematic and blacklisted agencies to steer clear of. Unscrupulous or incompetent agencies have a habit of repeating their past mistakes. Surely, you have no desire of being their next unsuspecting victim, do you?

Many countries that depend heavily on migrant labour maintain a registry of licensed maid agencies. They keep track of the agencies' performance through a number of key indicators, such as demerit points, maid placement volume and retention success percentages. News archives may reveal maid agencies that run foul of the law in their treatment of recruited maids, and those accused of dishonesty by past clients. Most of this information is easily available, through the convenience of the Internet. We advise prospective employers against committing to any maid agency in haste, without some preliminary screening on their part. From our observations, maid agencies that advertise aggressively in the classifieds, boasting the lowest fees in the market, attract the most clients. Unfortunately, many of them consistently under-deliver their promises at such bargain-basement prices. Do your quick homework, to discern the truly competitive offers from the bogus ones. It's definitely worth the small investment in your time.

Maid agencies are the crucial links between employers and maids, as most people lack the connections and know-how to recruit their own maids from a foreign country. We believe that most agencies are operated by honest and credible individuals. However, as with any other industry, black sheep do exist among maid agents. We hope that this article by Maid Aware will assist in your selection of a quality maid agency.

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Rebecca Atkins is a mother of two, and runs a home-based business in Asia. She has employed, trained and managed many foreign domestic helpers for housekeeping and childcare responsibilities. Rebecca notes a growing reliance of maids among middle- and high-income families, as busy individuals and working parents contract full-time paid domestic help, to lessen their daily household chores. Personal accounts by friends and associates point to general lack of understanding between most employers and maids. Worse still, cases of maid abuse, accidents, conflicts and wrongdoings are frequently reported in the media.

Rebecca draws attention to this social problem through an online initiative where she shares her experience, knowledge and insights on how to recruit, train, manage and motivate maids. She hopes to grow Maid Aware into a friendly community for useful maid news, information and advice. Please visit http://www.MaidAware.com/ to get further tips on how to manage employer-maid relations.

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