HYDERABAD: Loving relationships and a good work-home balance might be the keys to a happy family life, but with the fast-changing times, it is difficult to overlook the third ingredient – the house help. With the increase in nuclear families where husband and wife have busy careers to manage, the smooth functioning of a household is largely dependent on a skilled help who turns up for work regularly.
Given the pressing need, more and more people are turning to online manpower agencies for help. These agencies, which supply house helps, cooks, gardeners, nannies and other caretakers in the city, claim to have a flourishing business. Balaji, an executive in Alankrita Services, said: “We supply 30-40 persons for housekeeping per month. The areas which have more demand are Hitech city, Madhapur, Lingampally etc. We have been in business for the last 10 years.”
Complaints galore
However, if the testimonies of customers are anything to go by, the experience has been nothing short of a “nightmare”. Venting out on an online portal, a mom said: “I have had a nightmare of an experience engaging with an agency over the last two months. After several delays, they finally assigned a lady to take care of my baby. In the course of the next two days, I clearly realised that she had no experience in taking care of babies. I confronted her and she confessed that she was only doing household work with her previous employer and had never ever managed babies in the past.”
Busting the agency’s claim that they conduct thorough background checks, the mother went on to say, “After they assigned me another woman, the company asked me to pay the registration fees. I then asked them to provide me with the contact details of the previous employer of the nanny. The nanny had said that her previous employer had moved to Chennai, but shockingly, the agency provided me a Hyderabad number. I called the number and a lady picked up.
The moment I introduced myself she started blabbering about how good the maid was. This came as a surprise because I had not even told her why I was calling! When I again confronted the nanny, she cried and accepted that the agency had forced her to say that she had prior experience.”
When asked about background verification, Balaji said, “We make sure to run verification checks on the people we employ through our agency. We check their Aadhaar cards, fingerprints and family history and other details.”
High rates
While background checks remain a cause of concern, the high rates that these agencies charge act as a deterrent, especially if the services provided do not match the expectations.
While the pay for a full-time help hired through Alankrita Agencies is Rs 12,000 per month, the agency charges Rs 18,000 to Rs 20,000 as registration fee for a one-year contract. For a help who will stay from 8 am to 5 pm, the agency charges Rs 10,000.
Similarly, another agency called Help at Home charges Rs 8,000 for a full-day help (8 am to 5 pm), along with a registration fee of Rs 3,000 and replacement fee of Rs 8,000. Calling out such high rates, another professional from the city said: “I hired a full-time domestic help from an agency based in Kolkata two years ago, and the experience was very bad. They were charging Rs 15,000 at that time, and the person they assigned was inexperienced. Apart from the salary, you also have to provide the help food, soap, shampoo and other toiletries which make it all the more expensive.”
Speaking about the unreliability of the services, she added: “When I tried a local agency, they sent a very bright girl on trial basis. She was good and we decided to pay the agency Rs 5,000 as booking fee. She vanished the next day! When I asked the agency, they just said she didn’t turn up! It’s a big scam going on here.”
Another working woman pertinently asked: “If we are getting house helps locally at Rs 2,000 to Rs 4,000 locally depending on the area, why should we pay so much to the agencies?” Shedding some light on the bad customer experiences, Murali A Bukkapatnam, managing director of GDH Workforce, said: “There is a huge mismatch between customer expectations and the availability of domestic workers. Customers don’t want a formalised system as it impacts their cash flow. Workers too resist being part of formalisation.”
I can find work myself
Vasantha, who works at a house in Begumpet, said: “The agencies make more money than the maids. It is unfair. The mediators get a good sum just for connecting us with employers. Considering that a good help is always in demand, I think that at least for now, I can find work myself.”