How to retain housekeeping employees for long

By Editorial Team Last updated Sep 27, 2023

How to retain housekeeping employees for long

Your perspective plays a major role in how well you would cope with your just-employed maid. First, you should understand that for this individual to be seen as someone who could live with you and carry out the most important responsibilities in your esteemed home, she must be somewhat intelligible. Also, she possesses some level of strength and qualities and therefore deserves basic care and respect from you and every other person including your children, neighbors, relatives, and friends. (No one would deliberately hire an imbecile or a moron as a maid)

The under-listed are some of the steps to retain your house help

Invest in her life

Look for a way to positively affect the life of your maid aside from making her live comfortably with your family. She won’t live with you forever, but while she is with you add value to her life. Invest in her future. You might not afford to send her to school; she can learn a trade or a skill. Always give her words of encouragement, remind her that the future is bright and promising. Make her feel worth loving and appreciated. Try, even if it is once to ask and listen as she talks about her dreams and the hopes she has about the future. (You would be amazed how you would be included in her fantasy world of the future because you are helping in creating it)

Avoid her wrath

Have you taken time to wonder why some maids abuse and maltreat the children they are supposed to protect and take care of? Well, the striking answer is ‘jealousy’ or you can call it revenge. While others sleep she is awake working, while others play she is busy working, while the children go to school she is at home working out her life, while the children of the home dress in designer’s fashion, she dresses in rag-like clothing, while others feed on the table with dignity and pride, her place is on the kitchen floor, while the children sleep on the cozy rooms and comfy mattress, her sleeping place would only pass for rats.

She goes to the market and probably does the cooking but she is not allowed to have a satisfying fill of the meal. Also, she cleanses the entire house and makes it more comforting and pleasant to be but she is not qualified to frolic in the pleasantness of the environment. She prepares the children and probably takes and brings them back from school, but she is not good enough to go to school.

Also, she is constantly mocked for being illiterate and good for nothing when the children of the house display intelligence and brilliance. When she is always been insulted, berated, and being seen as inferior and something that is being used rather than a human being who deserves to be respected, appreciated, and cared for.

The bottom line is that it is almost impossible for your maid to happily and genuinely take care of your kids and home in your absence when you treat her like trash. You don’t sow pepper and expect to harvest tomatoes. Also, you don’t maltreat your maid and expect her to be happy and treat your children well. You vandalize her emotions day and night and expect her to be composed and behave smartly.

She needs your acceptance

You should consider and also compare where she is coming from and where you have brought her to, (your home, ideologies, the circle of friends, level of education, and standard of living).

The difference would probably be strikingly vast. On the other hand, there might be a common ground; maybe in the past of the woman probably when she was a single lady or young girl. Things change; you know! A maid today can be the mistress of a prestigious home tomorrow. A naïve, uneducated young girl today could be a smart lawyer, doctor, banker, entrepreneur tomorrow. It all depends on what you think and how you see and handle her.

Understand the differences between her background and yours and deal with her with patience, kindness, and humility. You do not have to despise her for her lower class, lower education, and her English speaking deficiencies. There is still time and hope for her if you do not kill her destiny by making her believe that she worth nothing and would never amount to anything due to your constant berates and abuses.

Help her build confidence

You might discover that your maid doesn’t have self-esteem or suffers from an inferiority complex. Also, you can be of tremendous blessing to her by talking confidence in her. She can improve by the way you speak and relate to her. The way you correct her when she makes mistakes and appreciates her when she does impressively well can drastically change her for the better.

You must understand that the fact that she is a maid today doesn’t mean that she doesn’t have a great destiny within her or a very envious future ahead of her.

Take time to observe her, try identifying her areas of strength, and maximize it for mutual advantage.

No amount of money is worth it

Even if you as a woman are paying the maid, no amount of money can commensurate with the responsibility of taking good care of your children and home while you are away. No amount of money will ever make up for the time that the maid spends in your home, the time she should have been in school, learn a skill or business, and The time of the formation of her future and destiny.

As a mistress, no matter how little and unimportant you think your maid is- she is still a human being with common sense and perhaps with great intelligence, strength, abilities, and gifts even though these potentials might be hidden from your eyes out of spite.