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| photo borrowed from activerain.com |
After my
post on Help La Vida Lanka,
an e-mail comment from my mom and a discussion with Diplo Wife,
I decided to write about a few learnings from this experience. As I previously mentioned, help
management is an area I am not accustomed to. Leave that for the “adults” to handle! And now that I am one of the adults in
our home, then this is now one of my responsibilities. As I am just a novice at help
management, I had to go through the learning curve the hard way. Here are some of the initial learnings
I have and I hope it will help you, my dear readers in some way:
1) Be thankful for help! I know that when you take a
cross-section of the world, not even half of the households would be in a
position to hire help – whether full-time or part-time for that matter. Especially in countries where help is
expensive or even looked down upon,
managing a home is more challenging.
Of course there are trade-offs (more technology to help you around the
house like dishwasher, etc.), having help (the right one for that matter) is
still a big convenience. People
say “can’t live without them, can’t live with them” – at least for now, with a
growing family, I would rather make it work to “live with them.”
2) They need constant monitoring and
management. It doesn’t mean that
when the orientation phase is over, they will work like a well-oiled machine
from then on. They need constant
guidance especially for things that are new (such as my new yoga pants). Be directive if you must because most
of them really do need to be given specific and direct instructions. My mom said not to give them the space
for initiative or even to think for themselves – at least not when they have
not yet proven that they can. I
mean even at the workplace we don’t give too many decision-making
responsibilities to fresh graduates or new employees in certain levels unless
they have proven that they can. To
do that constant monitoring and management, you have to have an opportunity to
observe them in action. I went
into this set-up because I would rather do something else (like work of
course!) so the cleaner was left with a list of things to do as our constant
interaction. She would then “write
back” with the list of things for me to buy (cleaning items that have run
out). But it doesn’t work that
way. Virtual reporting
relationships doesn’t work with home cleaning. So I had to make sure that we at least have a day where I am
home and can give her direct instructions / corrections, etc.
3) Recognition is also vital. I make it a point to reinforce the
things that they were able to do well – as immediately as I can. I’m a bit particular with the
cleanliness in the car and asked my driver to clean the trunk. Once, when I opened it and I was
actually surprised it was sooo clean!
I immediately praised him and the smile on his face was just
indescribable.
4) I also saw my mom
taking care of our help especially when they are sick. First, we give them medicine. At least the first aid kind. Second, we actually encourage them to
rest when they are sick. One so
they could recuperate easily and two so they also won’t spread the virus! At
least the “salaried” ones (e.g. driver), when he calls sick, we give that as
“paid leave.” Third, we also try
to give them freebies. When I was
in Manila, I used to get free product allocation from the company I worked
for. Some of it we share with our
help and even with the guards in our village. Now, I don’t have freebies but we can get discounted
products and we take advantage of that.
On a regular basis we give our help bulk powder and when there are
special products on sale, we share the blessing too with people in our condo –
security guards and building office folks. These small things really go a long way – they see you’re
taking care of them, and they will also “take care” of you too.
5) Things will not flow smoothly all
the time. No matter how you’ve
established rules and routines and whatnots, sometimes things will really just
get lost in translation, or people will falter (both you and them!). In times like those, depending on the
situation of course but for those that fall under the “normal” range, take it
with a grain of salt, correct immediately or apologize immediately as well,
sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and charge it to experience and take
time out to reflect on the experience – what went wrong, why, how could it not
happen again and what was your contribution to the situation.
6) Hire for “aura” as well. Now I understand why my mom doesn’t
like it when our help is always frowning.
“Bawal ang nakasimangot dito” (frowning is prohibited here) would be an
apt slogan in our house. You don’t
want any negativity in your home right?
Trust your instincts when hiring help – in as much as they are capable,
since it’s a very personal relationship, it should feel right as well.
7) Adjust to their strengths and
weaknesses too. Let me borrow
another cliché, “nobody is perfect.”
But you have to work with what they are good at and adjust your expectations
on what they are weak on. It saves
you the frustration and gets you the results in the end. I know one of our drivers really move
slow (as in drives slowly, etc.) so I always tell him what time I need to get
to this place and what is the importance of getting there on time. I find him adjusting and exerting
effort. When he gets us there
(alive) and on time, I refer to #3 and praise him.
So what
happened after Help La Vida Lanka? Well, it did not work with our
cleaner. She was failing not only
on the yoga pants front but in many aspects as well. I did ask her to pay but she kind of went AWOL after that so
I guess good riddance. Based on
#6, her “aura’s” kind of negative and I wouldn’t want her to be around my baby
if she’s like that. Her negativity
was what was affecting her work as well and I guess it was all for the
best. I was able to find another
maid right away. She’s
awesome. Not perfect but a lot
better than the last and I always make it a point to apply the above learnings
in “managing” her. She has a nice
aura as well – very positive and works well. However she got sick (she had a heart surgery before) and now I’m back on the hunt! Our drivers are both quite stable. Both are competent and are doing their
jobs well. When I stop work, one
will take on another role (naks!) in a government agency that pays well. Good for him!
The chapter on help is not yet over for me (more on
this later!). But I hope my humble learnings
will help you dear readers in Help Management 101!
