I can’t believe that in the mid of this year, our helper will be with us for two full years. I remember I was so full of apprehension about bringing a stranger into our house. With all those horror maid stories, it certainly scares anyone from thinking about having a maid.
At the end of the day, we find that having a maid has been a great help to us. Though she does work a bit slow and is often dreamy and not careful enough at times, she is not forgetful, is intelligent, quite safety concious (probably because we drum this into her often) and does not have an attitude. She is also used to our household schedule by now. We are thinking of asking her to stay longer. Does anyone know
- What is the process of renewing maid after 2 years?
- How much does the procedure to renew maid after 2 years cost?
- What are the pemits, health checks, passport permits etc that is required?
- How do you ask your maid to stay?
- Do you send her home for a month or two or is it better to persuade her to stay on? I have been told that it is better to request that they stay on with compensation, otherwise they may change their minds after they get home
- How do you persuade her to stay on?
- If you don’t renew after 2 years what is the procedure? What is the cost?
- If your maid agrees to stay, how much do you save in agency and other cost? (This information is useful in order for us to decide how much raise or compensation to give her for possibly not returning home)
Help. Anyone?
I won’t be able to give you answer on how to retain the maid, but for the immigration part, I could help you a bit. It’s not tedious, and you can save the agency fees, but all the other medical check will need to be redo. You can either email me or check with the immigration website. 😀
how to retain maid = concentrate on what motivates her eg $ for sick parents / schooling children etc
how to make sure she returns = retain part of her salary
hope you have better luck than my MIL. Her maid agreed to continue after 2 years and on the day she was to return to M’sia, she even smsed me to tell me she’s on the way to the airport and not to forget to pick her up. But MIL waited at the exit for > 2 hours and she never came out. when checked with the airport immigration, they said she was on the plane and that they had let her out already. Where’s she? Lots of theories but no answer…
so do retain some of her salary in case she runs away (hopefully not)… at least you can cover your cost..
my mom increased the salary of the maid, which made her very interested to stay on for another 4 years.
sorry, wont be able to help you as i’m not retaining my maid. decided to let her go when her contracts end in june – i just feel she’s not worth the salary i pay her monthly. also coz i think i can handle the girls on my own now that no. 2 is bigger.
but i have heard it is better if you can convince her not to go back in btw and stay on as they can be influenced by their friends and relatives when they go back for holidays. and if she still wants to go back for hols, just make sure you keep some of her money behind to cover her airfare, etc in case she doesnt come back. i think you will also need to cancel her permit and i’m not sure if you will be fined a couple of hundreds or not for this.
i know i still need to cancel my maid’s work permit when she goes back for good and i will be doing this on my own to save the fee i need to pay the agent. i will buy her air ticket and will send her to the agent the day before her flight so that she has a group of indons to go back with as she has no clue how to get back to her village! my maid is really blur and naive (but like your maid, i thank god she doesn’t have an attitude, only need to be monitored now and then).
good luck with persuading your maid (i know my friend told her maid that she can save so much more by staying on and she also increase her salary as a motivator). really, if the do want to work again after that with a new employer, they will have to start all over again too and who knows if they will get a bad employer or not. so i guess you can use these reasons.
How to retain her? Free ticket back after extension and a big bonus. $ speaks.
Renewing is very easy only.
1) Go to the bank and get a bank cheque of RM190 (for ladies) payable to “Fomema Sdn Bhd”.
2) Go to Fomema (I went to the Damansara Heights branch, maid don’t have to go) and submit the form (printable online from home), they will give you a chit/receipt almost immediately.
3) Bring the chit, your maid’s passport and your maid to the Dr of your choice (have to be chosen and filled in to the form in step 2), get the XRay and checkup done.
4) After a week or so, go online at fomema.com.my and check for the XRay status, if passed… then go to immigration (I went to PKNS Shah Alam, no need to bring maid), pass cash (abt RM445, dunno changed or not) and maid’s passport to the counter. After 15 mins or so, done!
Make sure that maid’s passport is still valid for the next year 🙂
retaining the maid, it boils down to whether the maid has intention to work or she wants to balik kampung jaga suami/anak/etc.
If the maid has intention to continue working, then can explain to her that continue working with u will be better than a new employer. She loses 6 mths pay to agent, and unknown new employer. My eldest sista use this to get the maid continue work..Maid just came back few days ago from 2 months balik kampung. This maid memang has intention to work, just that she was thinking of working in different country – higher pay mar. Then we get our 10-year-old maid to advise her otherwise, in case she meet with a gila employer and also loses pay.
If the maid already has intention not to work or being brainwash by her people back home, no matter how much $$ oso susah to retain. You can keep her salary or whatever promise they tell u….they dun come back.
U must probe, what’s in her mind first, then u can decided what bullet to use.
what a coincident, i’m in the exact situation! My maid is going to complete her 2-year term by mid of this year too. And she’s almost the same type of maid as yours! 🙂 She’s very slow and dreamy, but smart and responsible at the same time! The only other problem i hv with mine is, she’s also prideful at times – eg reluctant to cut her hair short bcos ‘malu’, reluctant to wear a watch i gave her for the same ‘malu’ reason! go figure! and sometimes she’ll pull a sour face when she’s not in the ‘right’ mood! But she’ll carry out her duties as usual. So sometimes i just leave it. I still consider to extend her service as i’ve heard of numerous nightmares of worse maids.
On how to retain her, my agent’s advice:
1. Increase her salary (as her starting pay with us is quite low)
2. Pay for the airtickets
3. Retain some of her salary while she’s back home
4. But ready that she’ll be exposed to the recent m’sia/indo maid-mistreatment sentiments back home, and might harbor grudges or discontentment. And might even feel she deserves more, etc. So what i’ll do is to hv a good talk with her on the conditions beforehand, and let her know abt my stance on this whole issue (eg it’s acceptable to increase her pay at reasonable rate but how some other conditions like 1-day off simply won’t work, etc) and work out a win-win solution with her. Also let her know how it’s less risky to work for a family she’s already familiar with.
On the permit extension, i was thinking of letting my agent handle it. But after hearing others advice here, maybe it’s a good idea to settle it myself too! thanks for initiating such a timely topic! 😉
Good luck!
approach ur agent regarding renewing ur maid. they will be able to help u. i wld personally not prefer maid to go home for hol, but will increase her salary and bonus to make her stay for another few more years. its not easy to train a NEW maid all over again. yeah, retain her salary so that she will return, but i rather not she return just after 2 yrs. she might turn out bad after coming back from hol
Just wondering if it is legally or even morally right to withold someone’s salary for services already rendered. An employer-employee relationship that is mutually respectful is the best bet for a mutually satisfying situation (happymaid-happyemployer).
To answer your first 3 questions:
my maid’s permit has to be renewed after she worked here a year. i paid the agent to get everything done, so no heahache.
To answer rest of the questions:
I “brainwash” my maid a lot when she is working here. Told her like a lot people went back regretted coming back when money is used.Then they loose even much (6 mnths salary to agent) as they need to go thru agent again when come back. As for going back, I dislike the idea coz i do not want my maid to go home and start comparing employer with her neighbours. Instead I told her I’ll compensate her flight back for holiday with cash rewards (good that she loves money). If your maid insists going back for holiday, u can discuss with her if she is willing to wait until the kids school holiday /anytime it is easier for you.
I just blog about my maid’s extension on this. All the best to you, MG.
Hello Everyone,
Thank you so much for all your comments and feedback. I find it very helpful indeed. Thanks. 🙂
MG
If you don’t want to renew her after 2 years, buy her a ticket and send her to airport. But before she is leaving this country, you must contact your agent to help you to get a letter from immigration dept that declare your maid has completed her 2 years employment with you. Agent will sometimes charge you RM50 or FOC if you take another maid from them. If you get the letter by yourself it is free.
Some agents will prepare a note that stated the total amount of money your maid received from you, to be signed by your maid and you.
It’s better to compensate them rather than let them go back. I heard some of them buy the maid return ticket and give them 1 month salary.
If you have time, you can go through all the renewal process by yourself. It’s not difficult, can call the Fomema and immigration for information on health check and the bankdraft for Fomema and Ketua Pengarah Imigresen. From my experience 3 years ago, when I get the permit for the second year, I could save about RM150+.
For third year renewal, my agent told me the service charge is RM350, exclude the passport renewal RM300 which I did it myself at KBRI (Indonesia embassy) at only around RM22, can’t remember.
Later my maid’s husband refused to let her stay for another year so I had to let her go.
All the best and Happy CNY to you and your family.
Thanks Martini. That really helps.
would like to know, did you manage to renew your maid permit? Do you need to fill in form from imigration
Hello Bee, I will explain a bit more in my latest post ok?
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