The Domestic Helper Training Handbook
Professional cleaning, laundry and home health standards for humid and air-conditioned homes.
The Shared Standard, Book 3. 139 pages, 6 x 9 inches, designed to be written in.
Ordering opens shortly. The paperback is printed and shipped through Amazon and the PDF workbook sells direct from this site. Both links go live when the store is connected. Write to hello@thesharedstandard.com to be told when.
Who this book is written for
This one is different from the other two. It is addressed to the household professional herself, not to the employer, and it is hers to keep.
You buy it. She uses it. She writes your household's specifics into it, and it becomes the reference she can consult at nine on a Tuesday evening without having to ask.
That distinction is the point. A document she owns gets used. A list handed to her gets read once.
The problem it solves
Most of what is called training is not instruction. She knows how to clean a bathroom. What is missing is which of the four reasonable ways is the one your household uses, and a reference she can check without interrupting anyone.
This book supplies the professional baseline. Your household's specifics go in the spaces provided, agreed between the two of you.
What is in it
Cleaning. Room by room, surface by surface, with the finished state described rather than the effort. Products, sequence and what damages what.
Laundry. Fabric handling, machine settings, stain treatment, and the particular problems of drying in humidity.
Home health. Food safety and storage in a hot climate, kitchen hygiene, mould and damp in air-conditioned homes, and the routine maintenance that prevents most of it.
Your household's version. Space throughout to record the agreed standard for this home, filled in together rather than issued.
A note on the language
Book 3 uses the term household professional. Books 1 and 2 use the ordinary word, because they are addressed to the employer and that is the word she uses.
The difference is deliberate. This book is written to her, about work she does skilfully, and the word it uses reflects that.
What these books do not do
They do not certify anyone. The Shared Standard is not affiliated with, endorsed by or approved by the Ministry of Manpower or any government agency.
They do not give legal advice. Every regulatory figure is sourced to the agency that sets it, with the date the source page was last updated, and requirements change. Check the source before you rely on a number.
They do not tell you what people from any country are like. Where country of origin matters it is because a regulator has set a rule that binds you, and those rules are stated with their source.
Which book do you need
Not hired yet. Book 1. Define the job, price the year, run the interview.
She arrives soon, or arrived recently. Book 2. The fortnight, the standards, the cadence.
She is settled and you want the practical standards in her hands. Book 3, this one.
Every book also opens with a one page version of this, so a reader who has bought the wrong one can find the right one.
How it was made
Written by Lisa Gewald, founder of The Shared Standard, out of an MBA thesis on trust in cross-cultural teams graded 1.2, and a survey of employers in Singapore published in full.
Read in draft by a panel of first readers before release, and revised against what they found.
The interview and values tool is free.
It defines the job, generates your question set, and tells you which popular questions to drop. No account needed.