There is a book called ' Helper's Helper' by Julie Jacobson which is very helpful as well. It's available at most book stores. I got a copy from Bookazine last week.
I hope the helper's manual is useful to you. The reason I started to write it is because I have heard a lot of ladies complaning about the helpers. They expect them to know everything on the day the helpers start the job. In order to make everyone's life easier and to avoid unnecessary trouble, I decided to put a manual together and it's working so far for me.
Here are a few more additional tips for 'tranining your helpers
which are not included in the manual.
1. When giving instructions, notices or recipies, put them in writing. Ask your helpers to write them down so they won't forget. It is also useful to install a magnetic white board on the fridge so you can write things down.
2. When possible, demonstrate to your helpers how to do things such as cooking, operating the washing machine or even how to clean a toilet properly.
3. Give them a daily/weekly/monthly schedule. Let them know what you expect to be done everyday, weekly and monthly.
4. When giving instructions be as detailed and clear as possible. One time I asked my helper to marinate the beef with the Lee Kum Kee satay sauce but she only used the oil floating on top of the sauce to marinate so the beef came out tasteless and oily. A simple task like this can go wrong. I should have told her to shake the bottle first before using.
5. Mistakes and accidents do happen. Try not to scold or yell. It will only stress you out and make your helper unhappy. When mistakes happen, tell them the problem, ask them why and how to avoid it. Sometimes we need to ask them to think so they understand and will not do it again. One time my helper was cleaning the baby bottles steralizer but there were no clean bottles to use and it was my baby's feeding time. I told my helper that my baby had no bottle to use and I asked her what to do. She then realised she should not have cleaned the steralizer and suggested to clean the bottles using a pot of boiling water instead. Since then she has scheduled to clean the steraliser after the bottles are steralised.
All in all, if we communicate effectively, everyone will be happy.
