Arrow really hit the spot for us!

Status
Not open for further replies.
T

thanka2

Registered User
I know that this domestic helper employment agency has been mentioned before on Geobaby but I'd like to share a bit of my experience here and recommend them again because I was just overwhelmingly impressed with their service this week.

Arrow Employment Agency

Yet once again, our life situation has changed and we felt that it was finally time for us to find a domestic helper. I've been quite resistant to hiring one up until this point (my son is coming up on 2-years-old now) for several reasons and one of those is that every time we've gone to look for a helper through an employment agency I just got a stomach-churning vibe that the situation was dodgy. Like many women, I trust my intuition on these things.

So, where to start to find a good domestic helper--one that fits our situation and our family and requirements?

I e mailed a Filipina friend who worked at one time as a DH in HK and asked her for some people to contact. I responded to a few posts here on Geobaby of recommendations of helpers looking for a new employer. And then we just happened to call some close friends of ours who are American and have lived in HK for over 25 years and raised three now-grown children here. The recommended Arrow Employment Agency because they are personal friends with the owner who is also an American who has been here in HK with his family for over 20 years.

The owner came in and talked with us and we spent 2.5 hours there! In HK, time is money so for someone to spend that amount of quality tiime with you, going over in detail employee profiles and calling employees for interviews was really great. So, after doing three interviews we think we've settled on a lady who is 45-years-old, has no children and has already worked for 8 years in Hong Kong as well as a couple of years in Taiwan and a couple of years in the middle-east. Her goal for working is to buy herself and her husband a house.

Apparently, Arrow is the only agency in Hong Kong that offers a refund of the fee for the duration of the contact. You do pay a little bit more for their service but they are personally involved with the training of the helpers.

Other agencies in Hong Kong contract with agencies in the Philippines that send them reems of bio data forms--that have a name a date of birth and a few contacts on them (which could also be family members posing as employers etc.) so the agencies here in HK know just as much as the prospective employer (us) about the potential employee they are offering--they've never seen or met these ladies and probably can't vouch with certainty that the information on the forms is even 100% true.

Not so with this agency--they personally go down to the Philippines every two months to partner with a local agency there to hand-pick candidates for their agency--then are personally involved with their training which takes a holistic approach--even addressing issues like emotional/family issues/baggage that the women might be bringing with them to HK.

For every photo of the women we looked at in the book, the owner, who came to meet with us, as I said, could tell me more about that woman--including her background and her personality. During the training each woman receives marks in a report card in different areas including: humility, common sense, cooking skills, professionalism, emotional maturity etc., childcare skills, English--it's pretty detailed and so in that way it's also easier to see where a woman excels. Also, the owner was very forthcoming about the strengths and weaknesses of each candidate--there was on candidate we were considering and he said, "She is great a cooking but because of her size (she's quite overweight) and her energy level, I don't think she would be the best fit for a family with a small child." I couldn't tell from the photo that she was extremely overweight but he knew her from the training and could give us that inside information.

Most of the women that end up on the roster to be available to come work in Hong Kong for this agency are referred to the agency by helpers in Hong Kong that are already doing well--so if a helper comes to HK with this agency and adapts well, does a good job, excels, then they are called upon to recommend others for training--it's sort of like a right of referral.

Other agencies also are often involved in really dodgy practices like charging the ladies who come to work in HK really outrageous agency fees which send them into debt. Arrow does not charge its candidates any fees. You can read more about some of the other things that go on behind the scenes at many HK agencies here.

Once the candidates arrive in HK Arrow does a check-up call with the employer every 7-10 days for the first month to see how things are going and to serve as a liason for working out any initial issues that may be going on between employee and helper--to help establish good communication early on in the relationship. They also check in with the employee to see how they're doing and offer counseling and a "soft place for them to land" if anything is going wrong or they're having difficulties. The staff that do this part of the check up are all from the Philippines so helpers can feel more at ease about talking with someone from their own culture.

I just really appreciated that the staff took a great deal of time to talk to me and get to know my preferences and our family situation.

I had a pretty specific set of requirements walking into the meeting. 1) I don't want to hire anyone who has small children at home--I understand the logic of women coming to earn money in HK to send back to their 6 (and most of them had 5-6 children--some ranging from ages 25 all the way to 1 in the same family!!!) children. I really understand that--but honestly, personally, my heart can not withstand knowing that every day that this woman is taking care of my son she could be back in her home country spending time with her own son who is the same age as my son. Different people have different opinions and reasoning when it comes to this point.2) I prefer that the helper be older--meaning, I don't want to hire someone who is in their early-20s and whom I feel I need to be a mother to. In the right situation, age wouldn't be the ultimate deciding factor, though 3) If a woman has children, I prefer that they are already grown 4) Someone who still has enough spunk left in them to handle a very active 2-year-old boy 5) Someone who is a go-getter with ambition and a clear goal in life.

We found someone who fits this bill almost to-the-t. So, we will be meeting her in September when she comes to work for us. My husband and I both feel extreme peace about our decision. And if for some reason this candidate is not ideal (God forbid), we know the agency will work hard to make it a winning situation on all sides.

I will follow-up on this post and let you all know how things play out when the helper arrives but honestly, I have been to scores of domestic helper agencies and none come even close to the level of heart, detail and sincerity this agency handles both its HK clients and the domestic helpers it serves. If you need a good agency, I'd make Arrow your first stop. They totally renewed my faith in agencies in HK.
 
Thanks for taking the time to write this -- we're going down this route soon as we are expecting number 2 and this has been incredibly helpful. Will be sure to check them out.
 
Thanka2 juz wondering. The agency sounds too good to be true. Is it real? Sorry just had 2 bad experiences with agencies
 
Please keep us updated. I'm in the process of looking for a 2nd helper as we are expecting again. Interviewed at least 20 different people from Asiaexpat and was about to sign with 2 of them and they both flaked last minute so considering going the agency route now especially after reading your posting!
 
Of course, nothing is perfect...

curiousmummy said:
Thanka2 juz wondering. The agency sounds too good to be true. Is it real? Sorry just had 2 bad experiences with agencies
Click to expand...

Well, this agency is probably really different than any other agency out there. First, they are run as part-business, part-ministry. This means they actually exist to help and aid Phillipinas with a different route than the abusive and often corrupt agency system in their own country as well as HK. They also exist to fill the gap and provide potential employers with another option. In addition, our close friends, who are Americans in their late 60s--who came to HK to do volunteer work and ended up staying and raising their 3 grown children here--they are the ones who recommended this agency to us because they are personal friends with the owner, another American who has been here for 20+ years. So, for us, we had a close friend who has had personal experience with the owner and the agency over an extended period of time give us the recommendation.

Of course, this is not guarantee that the lady we hired is going to work for us--no one can guarantee that. Even the owner himself told me that there is no guarantee that a certain helper will be a perfect fit with your family. Also, whenever you're dealing with human beings you have to take into account that there are feelings and situations that change and well, that means that there are no guarantees with humans. That's what the owner told me when I talked with him.

But, I must say, they made a huge impression on me with their initial customer service. There is no other agency I've ever gone to that didn't give me a fast, hard, pressure-filled sell. The most any agent ever spent with us was maybe 20 minutes and usually it was a lot lower than that. They were very anxious to get us to decide on someone and book her right then and there. The atmosphere with this agency, Arrow, was the complete opposite--it was so laid-back. We could have spent 2 hours there and walked out and never hired a maid (in fact, we did walk out without signing anything and went home and thought it over and then called later) and there would have been no hard feelings or sense of disappointment from them.

So, our helper will likely come meet us in September or early October. After she's been here 2-4 weeks, I'll give a summary of my experience, how does that sound?

All I can say, is that you're not wasting your time by checking into this agency. Go check it out, sit down with them and see what your gut feeling is and that will tell you a lot, I think.

Here's to better experiences with domestic helpers in HK! Cheers!
 
wenyihsu said:
Please keep us updated. I'm in the process of looking for a 2nd helper as we are expecting again. Interviewed at least 20 different people from Asiaexpat and was about to sign with 2 of them and they both flaked last minute so considering going the agency route now especially after reading your posting!
Click to expand...

No problem. Like I said, I'll just give an update when the time comes and we've been working with the helper for 2-4 weeks--that should give me time to really assess the situation and see if the agency truly does follow through with their promises.

I read another post on this forum about a lady who couldn't get off of work to take her helper to immigration to pick up her ID card and the agency refused to help out. Actually, in their promotional brochure this agency offers to pick up your helper and take her to immigration to pick up documents if you're not available to. They also do all of the pick up at the airport, a 1-night orientation in HK, application for HK ID card and then bring the helper to your home with her belongings.
 
thanka2 said:
Well, this agency is probably really different than any other agency out there. First, they are run as part-business, part-ministry. This means they actually exist to help and aid Phillipinas with a different route than the abusive and often corrupt agency system in their own country as well as HK. They also exist to fill the gap and provide potential employers with another option. In addition, our close friends, who are Americans in their late 60s--who came to HK to do volunteer work and ended up staying and raising their 3 grown children here--they are the ones who recommended this agency to us because they are personal friends with the owner, another American who has been here for 20+ years. So, for us, we had a close friend who has had personal experience with the owner and the agency over an extended period of time give us the recommendation.

Of course, this is not guarantee that the lady we hired is going to work for us--no one can guarantee that. Even the owner himself told me that there is no guarantee that a certain helper will be a perfect fit with your family. Also, whenever you're dealing with human beings you have to take into account that there are feelings and situations that change and well, that means that there are no guarantees with humans. That's what the owner told me when I talked with him.

But, I must say, they made a huge impression on me with their initial customer service. There is no other agency I've ever gone to that didn't give me a fast, hard, pressure-filled sell. The most any agent ever spent with us was maybe 20 minutes and usually it was a lot lower than that. They were very anxious to get us to decide on someone and book her right then and there. The atmosphere with this agency, Arrow, was the complete opposite--it was so laid-back. We could have spent 2 hours there and walked out and never hired a maid (in fact, we did walk out without signing anything and went home and thought it over and then called later) and there would have been no hard feelings or sense of disappointment from them.

So, our helper will likely come meet us in September or early October. After she's been here 2-4 weeks, I'll give a summary of my experience, how does that sound?

All I can say, is that you're not wasting your time by checking into this agency. Go check it out, sit down with them and see what your gut feeling is and that will tell you a lot, I think.

Here's to better experiences with domestic helpers in HK! Cheers!
Click to expand...
Hi thanka2,

Just wonder how much did you spent on a ball-park figure for this agency? Like if there's any hidden costs or what to note for the whole hiring process?

Look forward to your sharing! Cheers
 
No hidden costs. On their website they are very upfront about the costs.

From my reading on this site about helpers it seems that the going rate is somewhere around $2,000 HKD for most agency fees in Hong Kong. Arrow's charges were around $3,000 HKD which was a palatable cost difference for us. We also received a 10% discount because we were referred by one of their clients (someone who had hired a helper through them) so that brought the cost to $2,700, if I remember correctly. So, yes, they are about $1000 HKD more expensive. Still waiting for the helper to arrive--I think she will be able to have all of her paperwork processed by the middle of to the end of September and we should meet her shortly after then. Will update here.
 
The cost seems about right. I paid $3,200 to the agency who processed my helper's applications as a direct hire(I found the helper myself) and there is no guaranteed free replacement either. Also it doesn't cover the agent picking up the helper from the airport(we picked her up ourselves).
 
Yes rani. My one worked in hk for about 4 years before I hired her, so I only had to pay for her medical check up. She was referred to me by her ex-employer(a memeber of this forum).

Good luck to all of you who are trying to hire a helper. I can vouch for a much easier and improved quality of life with the right helper, eg. dining out and followed by a movie with just your hubby; going to Shenzhen or Macau for fun without the kids...(please don't mistaken me as a bad mother, because sometimes we really need some time off from our kids:missingto)
 
Alright, so I haven't really had a chance to sit down and update this thread but I'll try now.

I promised that I would update and let everyone know how our experience with the helper we hired through Arrow has gone.

Well, first of all, we thought the earliest she would be able to make it here by would be October. We got a letter in early September from immigration saying that it would take 4-8 weeks for our helpers' papers to be processed. Two days later, immigration called us and said that everything was ready and that she could come anytime.

So, she arrived here on September 19 and as of this week she has been working for us for one month.

As far as Arrows' dealings with us--they have been really great. As promised, they picked up our helper from the airport, gave her a one-day orientation and took her to file for her HKID card. The next day they brought her to our home along with her belongings and spent about 30 minutes introducing us and helping her get settled in and answering any questions we had. As promised, they called the following week to check in and ask if we had any issues--at that point one issue had come up--we were unsure if our helper needed to wear her glasses all the time because she had mentioned several times that her normal everyday (not reading) eyesight wasn't that great but then she said she only was supposed to wear her glasses for reading. The staff at Arrow gave me some helpful pointers on how to go about resolving the situation. That was really helpful.

As far as our helper personally goes. She is very good-natured and an extremely hard worker. She rises with the chickens in the morning (and out where we live, we do have roosters that crow in the morning) and our house has never been cleaner or tidier. It's to the point where we have to "order" her to sit down and take a 10-minute break once in awhile. No one could ever accuse her of being lazy. She really does live by the motto, "If you have time to lean, you have time to clean", I guess.

As far as cooking goes, I think she does a decent job but she's still in the process of learning how to cook the style of food that we eat as she has mostly worked for Chinese families over the past 10 years and we aren't really big on frying everything we eat in a wok with oil. We bake and steam things a lot. Anyway, I really wish at this point I could just lay out instructions and ingredients and that I could come home to a meal but that's probably a way off yet.

How is she with our son? She is really attentive and spends really great quality time with him. He has learned a few words from her already like "turtle" and "parrot"--he already knows her name and has accepted her as part of the family--they get along well. HOWEVER, we are still working on the discipline factor as like most helpers, and especially those who have worked for local Chinese families she operates on the belief that our son is her "master" and she is to follow him around and pick up after him and just give him whatever he asks for (or demands)--including dropping everything she's doing every time he wants her to come over to where he is at. We have conscientiously been very careful to try to prevent creating a "xiao huang di" or "little emperor" and this age of toddlerhood is quite sensitive--if she doesn't start picking up on how we relate to our son when it comes to discipline we run the real risk of undoing a lot of good habits we've already instilled (i.e. waiting patiently; not being rewarded with what he wants when he throws a temper tantrum--which consequently doesn't happen often because there is no reward in it for him; asking for things with please and saying thank you; using age-appropriate table manners--no spitting food everywhere or sticking his feet on the table etc.)

I've heard from several others that this is just a weakness with almost all helpers--the tendency to just let the child do and have whatever they want just because again, they view the child as the "master." So, it's really a difficult concept for our helper, I think as I have explained that when we're not here she is "the boss" when it comes to my son, not the other way around and that we have charged her with doing things the way we do and enforcing our boundaries and standards. She just chuckles in a "Oh, that sounds nice...but I'll just do my own thing" sort of way which is kind of annoying because this is such an important issue to us.

So, we have to constantly correct her (i.e. "No, do not pick his toys up for him, ask him to pick them up--you can supervise and help a little but let him do the job because he is able and gets a sense of accomplishment from it.") and then tell her, "Watch what I do and copy it." Also, we really need to work on her "stern no face." If my son asks for something that he shouldn't have etc. she tells him "No" but then if he keeps asking she is like "No, okay? Okay, maybe it's okay....okay, I'll give it to you" With us, we just give a simple "No" and that's the end of discussion and our son doesn't push it with us because it really doesn't get him anywhere--if he figures out she can be manipulated, you know where that leads, right?

One other issue came up a couple of days ago that really made me realize that our helper may be lacking in the area of creative problem solving. All the adults in our house had to go to Wan Chai to set up for an exhibition on Monday but because my son is under 18 he couldn't come along--it's one of the only times we've left him alone with the helper. I asked my mother, "Did you tell the helper what to make for him for dinner?" She replied, "Well, not exactly but I think she knows where things are at and she'll either decide on something for him or call us." So, the helper called us as we were on our way home to ask if she should bathe the baby (which usually my husband does so we usually ask her to wait but once in awhile, we have her or my mother do it if it's really late). We told her to wait because we were on our way home. So, we get home and I ask, "What did you feed him?" She was like, "Oh, I didn't feed him anything. He ate a late lunch." I find out he ate at 2 pm but by this time it was 8:45 pm!!! That's almost 7 hours without food! Not even a snack! And for a toddler that is always hungry and growing by the day, that is a really long time to wait to eat! I looked at my son's face and I could tell he was just about to the point of breakdown--where he would have a meltdown because he wouldn't be able to decide whether he was more hungry or tired and then what would ensue is hours of struggle to try to feed and put him to bed. Anyway, I set to work making a simple sandwich for him and disaster was averted. I was shocked! I asked her after my son was fed and put to bed, "Why didn't you feed him?" She was like, "I didn't know what you wanted me to feed him and I thought you were bringing food home." Okay, since she has lived here we have NEVER brought food home for our son--yes, we eat out with him but we've never brought food home. We never said anything about that--and when she called us on the phone she could have asked for pointers on what food to feed him. Then later she told my mother, "I was ashamed to ask." I just kind of felt frustrated with the whole thing because while she was saying "Sorry she kept telling me why what she did was okay." I felt like saying, "Just say, 'I made a mistake' and next time I will either call you and ask or come up with a solution on my own." I didn't get upset at her I just told her to call next time and also to use her own imagination/problem solving skills to come up with a solution. Yeah, so it's not a huge deal, but it just made me think about how when I hired a helper I didn't want to hire someone I need to give play-by-play instruction to. But, we just do what we have to to get through, right?

Overall, I think we expected that our helper would be a very fast learner as she has worked in HK for 8 years before but sometimes I feel like I have to give her a play-by-play instructional on simple tasks and sometimes my husband I think to ourselves, "Did she REALLY work in HK before? And she doesn't know her way around a Park n' Shop?"

So, I would just say that the communication factor is a bit exhausting sometimes. She really is good-spirited and willing to learn, I think but sometimes I (and my mother who lives with us and has been training her a lot) want to shake her and say, "Take some notes! Write this down!" It gets tiring having to explain simple things over and over again--and I write out very simple (I teach basic English here in HK so I'm used to being simple with my language) notes to explain what I've already orally said at least 20 times.

But, the truth is that most people I've talked to say that it takes a good 3-6 months to really train a helper and for them to get used to living and working with your family.

So, we've just responded by lowering our expectations a bit and going slower.

But overall, I think our experience has been positive and we're still very optimistic that this helper will work very well for our family.
 
consultant speak suggests to never start a sentence with 'why' or 'who' as they have a blaming undertone and make people defensive. better to use things like 'what's the rationale', 'how come', etc.
 
cookie09 said:
consultant speak suggests to never start a sentence with 'why' or 'who' as they have a blaming undertone and make people defensive. better to use things like 'what's the rationale', 'how come', etc.
Click to expand...

Well, as my helper is speaking English as her second language, it is quite difficult for her to understand me when I ask her questions using more complex wording such as "rationale" and "how come." A simple "why" spoken in a kind and direct manner will be understood whereas the two previous phrases you suggested would leave her feeling puzzled trying to translate "rationale" and "how come" (as an English teacher, I'm used to trying to think like a person speaking English as a second language and phrases like "how come" could easily be confused with "how" as in "in which way did you do this"). For the sake of being simple and not bringing confusing language into play, "why" was definitely the appropriate word to use in this case. Now, if I was speaking with a native English speaker it would be different. Have you ever taught English as a second language or worked daily with people who speak English as a second language? If so, you completely understand what I'm saying.
 
I wanted to update this thread.


At the beginning of February we dismissed our helper. She was great at cleaning and keeping our home tidy but she just couldn't grasp the concepts we were trying to get across to her when it came to how we want our son looked after. She was good-natured and sweet and it was very sad for us to say goodbye to her but we also had given her 5 months to learn what we needed her to learn and I think in the end it was outside her skill set. It wasn't for a lack of training either as she had been intensively trained and supervised by my mother (who I trust completely) for 3 months almost 24/6. But as the director of Arrow finally counseled us, "You could give her 100 more years and she just isn't going to 'get' it because it's outside of her frame of reference or understanding."

However, Arrow has been really good throughout this whole process. They have helped us locate a new helper and hopefully, that helper will be able to be here by April. And hopefully still, she will be able to do the job we need her to do the way we need her to do it. We are, looking for a long-term working relationship with a helper and will offer incentives according to performance. We are reasonable people.

I will say there was one thing that we weren't too happy about--when we hired this helper we weren't informed (until much after-the-fact) that the helper didn't have a Philippines passport. Usually when helpers are interviewed on the Philippines side they have to at least have a passport ready in order to start processing. Well, because she didn't have a passport (has never been outside the country) that was another 4-6 weeks before she could even apply for a HK visa. So, yesterday, I just received a letter of receipt from HK Immigration that means that our helper's visa should be processed in 6 weeks or under (I'm really hoping for the "under"). This means that we've been without a helper since the beginning of February and we may not have a helper again until the beginning of May (or heaven forbid, later). This "clerical error" on the agency's side was a real bummer. They did inform us of the passport issue but it was at least a week or two after we had agreed to hire this helper. They gave us the option of going for someone else but since this helper impressed us so much in her interview, I guess we didn't want to risk it with another person.

On a positive note, we were able to conduct a Skype interview with this helper and let me tell you, that makes a WORLD of difference! If I had Skype interviewed our previous helper, I'm pretty sure we would never have hired her. Gotta love new technology!

I still vouch for Arrow but do hope that they will improve the timeliness of communicating important issues in the future. That is an issue that has been brought up by others in this thread and this has been my first experience with this specific problem and Arrow.
 
We had a problem with Arrow too.. we decided to hire a helper from them and signed all the documents and paid everything on the 1st or 2nd of Feb, the helper is supposed to be here in early April. Sadly, we were informed that the helper cannot pass the health check in the Phillipines (she is a Hep B carrier) and we have to either a) continue to hire her even she is a HBV carrier (the owner of Arrow doesn't recommend it and I am NOT gonna do this regardless) or b) look for another helper.

So we are here back to the very beginning and have to do everything from step zero again. WAIT for the owner to go back to the Phillipines for another group of candidates, look into their profiles, conduct interview, do all the paperwork, and WAIT for her to come...

Thanka2, I feel for your frustration and annoyance towards the whole issue, I am on the same boat with you. At least you have the same helper you are satisfied with, and another 6 weeks of waiting. The helper we wanted is no longer available and God knows when will we ever have a new helper here again....
 
Gladys, have you thought of going a different route? I think that Arrow is probably the best you can get as far as agencies go (because they will work with you to correct problems) but maybe it's not the perfect place for everyone? I think that if that had happened to me I would probably start looking in HK through word-of-mouth references or from ads on Geoexpat etc. We even briefly considered doing that when we found out about this helper. I guess that nothing is 100% or predictable when it comes to stuff like this but it still doesn't make it any less disappointing or frustrating. How long did you wait before you found out that she tested positive for Hep B? How long ago was that?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top