“If Dubai follows my advice, they’ll have it maid!”
Having a maid labor pool in Dubai
I wrote another piece about a strategy for having a government operated labor pool for maids in the Emirates )where Dubai is the largest city.) The basic idea was to have the government import prospective maids and provide dormitory accommodations for these ladies at no cost to the maids. The government would then charge a fee to employers in exchange for paying for the air transportation and interim lodging for these ladies. There might be an up front fee, plus a percentage of the maid fees for the first year or a fixed monthly fee for the first year.
On humorous note, Dubai will probably misinterpret my suggestion about having a maid labor pool and build a four acre, multi-billion dollar luxury swimming pool & Jacuzzi complex for their maids just to show off.
A problem solved
The problem is that currently families hire maids, sight unseen and sign multi-year contracts for maid service. The maid cannot legally leave the arrangement until the contract is over or risk imprisonment. This puts both parties at risk. The families have no idea if they will like the maid, and the maids don’t know how they will be treated by the family. Having a dormitory arrangement paid by the government would allow families to meet maids, and pick & choose. If a family didn’t like a particular maid, they could fire them, and the maid would have a place to stay at the dormitory. If a particular maid didn’t get picked for too long a time, or got fired too many times, the government would have the option to deport them and the airfare would be paid for by the government in my system as a courtesy to all parties involved. The expenses incurred by the government would be roughly compensated for by the fees charged to employers.
Maid Training
Since the Emirates aspires to be the best country that is, was, or ever will be, it makes sense that they might enjoy the idea of going to the next level managing their country. UAE is a country that is managed like a business, and the result is that they are not only prosperous, but very popular with folks from all around the world. It only makes sense that the government might ponder the idea of engaging in value added services that would make the lives of their citizens and upper class residents even better than it already is by using some innovative techniques that no other government has ever thought of.
In the UAE, maids are brought in from other countries with contracts. You cannot legally live in Dubai without employment, and you can’t get in the country unless you already have a job if you are a laborer. Upper class people have the cash to be able to come as a tourist to Dubai and make connections, but poor people don’t have that option. The basic problem is that an employer has no idea how good the maid is at their duties. Language compatibility is not always ideal either. There is also no guarantee that there won’t be personality clashes as well. If the relationship goes poorly, the maid has nowhere to go unless the employer pays for their return trip. Part of the solution is training and evaluation. Which facets should be taught though?
Laundry
This is an easy one. Most people know how to do laundry, but perhaps with a little instruction, their folding skills and ability to handle difficult situations might be enhanced.
Language
Maids coming to Dubai are typically from the Philippines, Pakistan or Ethiopia. They might know some English, but do they know Arabic? It makes sense that prospective maids are taught the language of their prospective employers to ensure that communication is smooth. Special attention to vocabulary relating to maid type duties could be emphasized during this training.
Cooking
Food is cultural. If a lady from Ethiopia is a master chef, but then comes to Abu Dhabi for a job, she might not know how to cook the local specialties. She might not have ever heard of these specialties. It might be nice if a government operated maid dormitory / school could teach them all of the local dishes, and perhaps a few dishes from India or other regions where employers might be from, or popular foreign dishes that they might like such as boeuf bourgignon!
Child-care
I know nothing about this because I am a guy, but there must be some advanced techniques for taking care of infants. Burping 101, diarrhea relief methodology, and crying reduction therapy.
Cleaning
Once again, this is not my department. Come to my apartment and you will be unpleasantly reminded that I’m not joking. Cleaning techniques can be complicated. There are many types of sprays, bleach, and scrubbing brushes. Knowing the right tools to use for particular tasks can be a daunting undertaking.
Maid Testing
Before a maid is given a long term assignment, I think that the government would be doing the community a huge service by testing these maids out, to ensure the highest likelihood of a happy experience as possible. Families who were willing to test maids out could be given a discount on maid service in exchange for their feedback which would be translated into analytics. Families could give a report card for each maid that they tried out for 3-7 days with scores for cooking skills, repetoire of recipes, language skills, personality, how good they were with small children and not so small children, cleaning, reliability, and responsibility. A simple survey with about 20 questions on a scale from one to ten with a comments section would be enough. It is a common mistake in the survey business to ask hundreds of questions and drive the survey taker crazy and leave no room for individualized comments. Short and simple wins the game in my opinion.
If the families testing these maids gave scores that differed drastically from other families offering feedback, they might be deemed to be unreliable in their analytics and dismissed from the testing program. Reliability in analytical feedback is critical, so you need individuals who systematically submit data that looks reasonable. I will note that personality analytics would be the one analytic that could vary extremely from person to person, so there is no way to know if that analytic is “reasonable” since some people get along well and others clash!
Each maid could be tested by four families before being dispatched on a real assignment. Although, I think it would be better if real assignments didn’t have any more than a week to week contract in the beginning, these assignments would be given with the intention of being long term.
Try four and pick the best.
It might even make better sense to let families try out four maids one after the other, and then pick the one they liked best. Each maid could be tried out for between one and four days. Families could even have the option to try as many maids as they wanted if they were willing to pay the associated fees involved in trying them and buying an “option” on the maids they liked. The maids would return to the dormitory for classes after their tryout was done to ensure that they would be available if picked. Once the family had sampled the work of each maid, they could pick the one they liked the most, and that one would be guaranteed to be available! What a system.
Scoring the maids using maidalytics (maid analytics)
Since these maids would have been tried out by many families and given scores, those scores could be tallied up and the maid could be assigned a score. Rather than clunky scores such as A, B, C, etc., it might be better to have scores on a 100 point scale with an explanation of how many percentage of maids are at each score level such as in the 70’s, or the 80’s, etc. If a family wanted a maid, they could request a maid with higher score if they were willing to pay more. Or, they could request a maid who was stronger in communication or culinary analytics if that is what they wanted.
Summary
The basic idea behind maidalytics is to ensure that families in Dubai get a maid that they will be ecstatic about. Why force people to be in miserable contract with a maid you can’t stand when you could get someone you adore? Using my very sensible system, families can get the optimal maid for them with minimal effort and no strings attached. Maids also have the right to quit if they feel a particular family doesn’t treat them kindly enough or works them too hard.