My family employed an FDW around one year ago to help with the maintenance of the house while the household is away at school/work.
Recently, we suspect that she’s starting to malinger to get off work. This occurred only after she started to hang out with other FDWs on her off days. Any advice on how to resolve this? We’re starting to do most chores on our own because she would break/damage our things without telling us about her mistakes and her dishonesty is quite appalling.
We don’t have much for her to do other than simple housekeeping and she rests everyday at around 8PM while waking up at 7AM. The onus is on us because we had to pay a hefty sum to employ her and all so it wouldn’t be practical to change FDWs every month or so. Our previous FDW came here merely on a “holiday” and decided that she wanted to return home after a month even with a contract written. We had to pay the full sum for her insurance which was supposed to last for one to two years. There was nothing we can do although the previous helper has been blacklisted by the relevant authorities for malingering due to her own self interest.
On this note, we’ve also realise that it is getting tougher to find good FDWs. We don’t have high standards. We merely want to return home to a clean house so it alleviates the stress of having to maintain the house after coming home from a long day of school and work. It is not helping when employers get “punished” for the misdeeds of these FDWs. Did you know that you have to go for mandatory lessons in order to employ a new helper after employing three within a span of a year or so? Even though these helpers may have chosen to leave on their own due to personal reasons not related to the employers?
I fully support the motion that laws need to be passed to protect these FDWs because it isn’t easy for them to leave home to pursue greener pastures for their family – often at the expense of the valuable time that they could be spending with their family. They’re also vulnerable to abuse/neglect within some families. But on the other hand, I also think that the authorities need to be impartial in terms of rectifying more laws to protect the employers.
All that we’re hoping for is to be able to employ a helper who’s responsible and stays accountable. Someone whom we’re eager to be able to treat as part of our family while they are so far away from their home. Anyone with relevant experience please do share some ways in which we can adopt to rectify this situation. And before we talk about mistreatment, we would often bring our past FDWs on holiday and give them red packets as a form of blessing during special occasions. We’ve never treat them as strangers but a part of our small but humble family. This time, we’re really at our wits end.