Tag Archives: Labor in Dubai

Maid in Dubai Continued: an introduction to Maidalytics

September 24, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

“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.

Maid in Dubai: A sensible solution to a controversial reputation damaging problem

August 19, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Management, Of Interest | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Dubai is famous worldwide. People love the business climate, the amazing architecture, the sheikh with his passion for life and his Kentucky bred horses. Dubai is a place that just doesn’t quit, and they love trying new and outlandish ideas, especially if those ideas are expensive? So, how do they do it?

Dubai started out as being a desert. Oil money was what got Dubai going. But, they were smart. They didn’t just decide to live off their oil money for the rest of their lives. They decided to invest in all types of other businesses and banking and build an economy like nobody ever dreamed of. Only 6% of their revenue these days is oil based which is good, because their oil is due to dry up in about a decade!

Dubai also is smart about getting labor. While the United States has a wall to keep illegal immigrants out, Dubai welcomes immigrants in, providing they have a job or employment contract. This is a sensible system because it allows Dubai to get lots of inexpensive labor from around the world. In the 1970’s, workers in the Arabian peninsula were mainly Arabs from other countries. After a while, the Arabians began to have a preference for the more docile cultures from the East such as Pakistan and the Philippines in particular. They don’t argue as much with their employers. Additionally, there is no minimum wage that I am aware of in Dubai, so they can get all the labor they need at pennies on the dollar. Why is it that they are so smart, and Americans just don’t get it. I think that America needs to learn from Dubai and have a free economic zone with low taxes, free immigration and no minimum wage! But, I digress!

The problem of hostage workers
Almost anyone can go to the United Arab Emirates if they have a job lined up. This is a great system for having a low unemployment rate. If you lose your job, you leave the country, and you become someone else’s problem. Another smart attribute of Dubai. For middle class folks, this might be an inconvenience, or a heartbreak for a few, but not something that will ruin your life. The Emirates doesn’t dish out citizenship to its endless supply of foreigners. They are temporary, and when they are done there — they leave! That way the locals keep complete control of their country which is once again – smart!

Low wage workers who are often construction workers or maids from Pakistan, Ethiopia, India, and the Philippines for the most part come to Dubai with a work contract as a general rule. Their employer holds their passport which makes it impossible for these workers to leave. Unfortunately, these workers are in a sense held hostage. As an employer myself, I realize that people these days are very flippant and have a very questionable work ethic. It is common for people to quit in the middle of a critical project. If you are not holding anything over their head, they can just leave. Dubai understands this which is why they like to once again have the upper hand by holding the worker’s passport for the duration of the contract. It used to be common for employers to defer part of the worker’s payment as well to make sure they didn’t try to leave. I agree that the employer needs to have the upper hand, but this methodology of holding people as virtual hostages is not ethical regardless of what the law says.

Some of the maids in various Arabian countries are abused or sexually harassed by their employers. It is unclear how many of them are maltreated, but it is enough of them to warrant concern. The problem is that they often don’t have the money to return to their country. If they run away from their contract, they will be put in jail. These maids are virtual hostages. They agreed to these conditions before they came to Arabia because they were desperately poor, but still, there needs to be a better way.

The solution
Rather than withholding part of people’s paychecks without a prior agreement, putting people in jail, or holding people’s passports, there should be a cleaner way to enforce employment contracts and prevent people from quitting prematurely. In regard to the workers who are put in jail (there are only a few hundred of these,) because they can’t afford a plane ticket home.

(1) Return Flight Bonds
It would make more sense if they are prohibited from entering the Emirates unless they post a bond with the local government to cover their return flight. The government could guarantee a return flight at the price of the bond even if the market price went up.

(2) Contracts with 10% withholding clauses
Rather than holding people’s passports, it might make sense that work contracts stipulate that workers will have 10% of their monthly pay deferred until the end of the contract. Sure, they could leave two weeks after their contract began, but they would lose the money on their plane ticket which would be punishment in itself. If they lost 10% of their pay by leaving early, they would at least have a way to make it back home to see a dying relative without losing everything. Additionally, the employer would be reasonably compensated for their loss as well. This seem like a system that is fair to all parties involved.

(3) Worker pools
It doesn’t make sense to hire someone for a job so personal like a domestic helper in your home who you have never met. It seems like a dangerous idea for all parties. It would be easier for all involved if the UAE government created a worker pool. Prospective maids could be flown in from various countries, and the government could provide dormitory lodging for them while they wait for a placement. This solves several problems at once. This system allows the government to test these ladies out to see if they are any good at vacuuming, folding clothes and taking care of screaming babies. Additionally, families who might want to hire these maids could meet them in person and see which maids they liked most rather than hiring someone who they met on web chat. Such a system would negate the necessity for multi-year contracts as well. If a maid was not happy with a family, they could return to the dormitory. And if the family was not happy with the maid, they could fire her on the spot. Contracts could be week by week rather than for two or three years. If a maid quit or got fired, they would go back to the dormitory.

(3a) Who qualifies for the dormitory?
If a maid came to Dubai on a government program, the government could pay the initial airfare as part of the worker pool system. In Dubai, everybody wants to get paid back naturally. The government program could extract a percentage from the family who wanted to hire the maid as payment for the airfare and dormitory expenses. The percentage might be 30% the first several weeks, and then 10% for additional weeks or months, or some other system with an up front fee, and a residual percentage. If a maid was fired or quit, they could return to the dormitory. However, if a maid was in the dormitory more than several weeks, or if they quit or got fired too many times, I think that we all agree that they should be sent back to their country of origin courtesy of the government for being “too much trouble!” I think it would be very nice of the government to provide such a system for their citizens. Part of the agreement should be that if a maid quits or gets fired, they can get an all expense ticket back to their country paid by the government at any time. Yes, this would be expensive for the government, but after all of the residual income they would get from the labor of high quality maids, they would make the money back, and every body would be happy.

Summary
I think that it is very clear that my three simple solutions would greatly improve the one area where Dubai’s reputation is in question as well as greatly enhance the satisfaction on both sides of the table in the labor market. Also, on a karmic note, you never want to have a situation where one group of people is severely oppressed. History has many examples of how the oppressed often become the oppressor, or vice versa after several decades or several hundred years. By allowing any type of repression in a country, that sets the stage for karmic retribution. Blacks were enslaved in the US for a very long time. The karmic reversal of this situation is that in 2014, many whites can’t get jobs or get into college because of affirmative action quotas. Now, whites are the ones being discriminated against. Women were subjugated in the US for years. Now, if you are married and get a divorce, your wife can take most of your money and all of your children. The women have much more power now. I’m not sure what the karmic turnaround for Dubai might be, but it might be so hard to find workers in Dubai in 2025 that the workers demand to hold the employer’s passport, otherwise they would just quit and leave the Emeratis high and dry. I’m just joking about that, but in America it is almost impossible to pin down workers and get them to do what they agreed to do. Dubai could karmically end up in exactly that situation several decades from now. So, now is the time to create balance in the universe to prevent any bad karma from accumulating.