Hiring a Domestic Helper in Singapore
The pre-hire workbook: job description, interview questions and offer terms, before you meet a candidate.
The Shared Standard, Book 1. 115 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.
This book is for you if
You are about to hire for the first time, or you have hired before and it did not go the way you expected. You have a rough idea of the cost and a strong suspicion it is incomplete. You have twenty minutes of video interview to make a decision about who lives in your home.
Not for you if she has already arrived. Start with Book 2 instead.
The problem it solves
Most hiring in this market happens in the wrong order. You look at candidates, form an impression, and work out what the job is afterwards, usually by correcting her once she is in your home.
We surveyed employers in Singapore about the hardest part of hiring. Of the twenty-seven who answered, sixteen named managing their own expectations, ahead of reference checks and ahead of communication with the agency. The difficulty is upstream of the candidate. This book is the upstream part.
What is in it
Part 1. The decision and the cost. Whether to hire, what it costs across the first year with every figure sourced and dated, the concessionary levy test, and a year on one page so the annual items do not surprise you.
Part 2. The job. The job description template with worked examples for four common household types, the priority ranking exercise for when duties collide, and the standards pages.
Part 3. Finding and interviewing. Direct hire against agency, what an agency does and does not do for its fee, the interview question set, the questions that predict nothing and why, and the reference conversation.
Part 4. The offer and the paperwork. Offer terms, the corridor rules that bind you, the sequence from work permit to arrival, and the deadlines that start running the day she lands.
What you have at the end
A written job description, an interview set built for your household, a completed cost model, and a first fortnight plan. Not notes. Documents, on paper, that you and she will both use.
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, this one.
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.
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.