How to write a job description for a domestic helper
Most people searching for this type the word maid, so if that is how you found this page, you are in the right place.
Almost nobody writes one. The job gets communicated in the first week, in fragments, mostly as corrections. That is the single most common structural mistake in a household with staff, and it is also the cheapest one to fix, because fixing it takes an hour and a blank page.
Why this is the step that matters
We asked employers in Singapore what the hardest part of hiring was. Of the twenty-seven who answered, sixteen named managing their own expectations. That was ahead of checking references and ahead of dealing with the agency.
Expectations that have not been written down are not expectations. They are assumptions, and the other person finds out what they were by getting them wrong. A household running that way is not a household with a difficult helper. It is a household where the job was never defined, and the person paying the price for that is whoever guesses wrong first.
What a household job description has to contain
Six parts. It fits on two pages. Anything longer will not be read by either of you.
1. The household
Who lives here, including ages of the children and anyone with care needs. Who visits regularly. Pets. The layout, and which parts of the home are hers. What time the household wakes and sleeps.
This is not context, it is the job. A three-bedroom home with a baby and a dog is a different job from a three-bedroom home with two teenagers, and a candidate who understands which one she is agreeing to is the candidate who stays.
2. The duties, in order of priority
List them, then rank them. The ranking is the part that does the work.
Every household eventually has the day when the laundry, the school run and the sick toddler collide. If she knows what comes first, she makes the right call and you do not have to be consulted. If she does not, she guesses, and then you correct her, and both of you record the incident as evidence that this is not going well.
Be specific about frequency. "Keeps the kitchen clean" is not a duty. "Kitchen surfaces and floor after each meal, full clean including the fridge on Saturday" is.
3. What is not part of the job
Shorter than the list above and more useful than it looks. Washing the car, cleaning a relative's flat, working at another address, anything you have decided you would rather do yourself.
Note that she may only work at the address registered on your NRIC. (MOM, migrant domestic worker eligibility, page last updated 14 March 2024.) Lending her to a relative for a weekend is not a favour, it is a breach.
4. Hours, rest and the rest day
A normal weekday, hour by hour, including her breaks and what time her day ends. What is different at weekends.
Then the rest day arrangement, in writing. She is entitled to one rest day a week. At least one a month cannot be compensated in money and must be taken. If any additional rest day is compensated, that requires her agreement and at least one day's salary on top of the monthly wage. (MOM, mandatory rest days for migrant domestic workers, in force since 1 January 2023.)
Write what you have actually agreed, not what the regulation permits. The regulation is the floor.
5. What good looks like
Two or three lines per major duty describing the finished state, not the effort.
This is the part everyone skips and it is where most friction lives. You and she almost certainly have different pictures of a clean bathroom, and neither picture is wrong. Only one of you is being assessed against the other's, though, and that asymmetry is what makes an undefined standard unfair rather than merely inefficient.
Write the standard together where you can. Ask her how she was taught to do it, then agree which version you are both using. A standard she helped write is one she can be held to. A standard she was handed is one she complies with until nobody is watching.
6. How and when you will talk about it
A named time. Fifteen minutes, weekly for the first month, then monthly.
Without a scheduled conversation, feedback happens at the moment of failure, which means every conversation about the work is a conversation about something that went wrong. That is the mechanism by which a workable relationship becomes a tense one, and a calendar entry prevents it.
Two rules for the writing itself
Write duties, not character. "Punctual with the school run" is a duty. "Reliable" is a verdict, and a verdict cannot be met, discussed or improved.
Write it so she could have written half of it. Read the finished document and ask whether it sounds like rules written about her or an agreement made with her. If it is the first, it will be complied with. If it is the second, it will be used.
Then use it
The job description is not filing. It is the instrument for everything that follows. It is what you interview against, because a question without a standard behind it only collects an impression. It is what you onboard from in week one. It is what you look at in month six when something feels off and neither of you can name it.
The tool walks you through the six parts above and produces the document.
It then generates the interview questions for the household you have just described. No account needed to use it. Enter your email if you want the printable job description and standards forms too.
The workbook
Book 1 has the full job description template with worked examples for four common household types, the priority ranking exercise, and the standards pages you and she fill in together.
Hiring a Domestic Helper in Singapore. The Shared Standard, Book 1.
Figures on this page were checked on 3 August 2026 against the sources named. Requirements and fees change. Check the source before you rely on a number.