Hiring a helper through direct employment

[xmauix]

hi nita,

Well, when the agency discouraged you about hiring a first time helper, it's right I hired someone directly from Philippines and like you, I shouldered everything. After 3 months, she quit ( well, we were thinking of firing her anyway.)

The thing is, since she din't pay a cent, she took her job for granted. She was only in charge of taking care of my 7 month old baby but she took advantage of the situation. It was her first time to work in Hong Kong too and I'm pretty sure she's not ready to accept how things go here.

She'd be sleeping when the baby sleeps instead of washing baby's clothes and stuff... she'd even brought her cross-stitching kit for past time.. I was totally surprised! It seemed like she din't come to HK to work but to have a vacation!

I think, asking the helper to at least pay half or a quarter of the agency fee is just fair. It's just for your feeling of assurance I hope everything works out well.

I'm hiring another one again... this time, I din't shoulder all the costs, I've asked her to pay for the miscellaneous stuff... at least, she had to open her wallet too and value what she's up to here.

Cheers

 

[ELT]

The rules change all the time. I just hired mine 3 months ago. Under our contract (at the time we signed it), yes, she has to live at the place where she works.

 

[ELT]

xmauix

Suspect your DH was a nanny back in Philippines. Nannies there just have to take care of the baby (nanny:baby ratio is 1:1 there). Household work are done by other helpers. So if she never worked overseas, she might have completely wrong expectation about working in HK.

I actually hired my DH direct as well. She never worked overseas but we're lucky as we don't have any problems you encountered. So far she is great, very efficient, hard working, and very good to my son.

Hope you find someone good soon.

 

[unruffled]

Agency Name, please?

Can you please provide the name of the agency that charges $3,200 for direct hire?

Thanks!

Hi Rani and to all who is planning to get a direct hire helper.....

The agency fee ranges from 1,600-2,000 dollars, BUT this is just the fee that we should pay in Hk. The poor helper also has to pay another 20,000 pesos in Manila, so it turns out to be expensive too.

What i did is find an agency that i pay all the expenses here, around $3,200, the helper won't pay anything in Manila anymore.

The processing takes 4-6 weeks.