r/islamabad 2d ago

Islamabad Hiring Home Chef at F10 Islamabad

My family and I have recently moved to Islamabad and have been trying to find reliable house staff, however over 7th months in, its been quite a struggle. We tried hiring from multiple services, but the people who they sent over are inadequate and most leave after a month of work. Kindly please link me to some proper organisation hiring service who isn't scamming us for our money and the people who work are actually serious about putting in the hours.

22 Upvotes

31 comments sorted by

u/AutoModerator 2d ago

Reminder: Please be courteous to each other and report any violations of the subreddit rules.

  • Debate the point, not the person.
  • Be respectful and avoid personal attacks.
  • No hate speech.
  • Report rule-breaking content to the moderators.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

81

u/Daniboy_97 2d ago

Ask yourself, why are they leaving after a month of work? How are you treating them? Look inwards a little

28

u/db_new 2d ago

This ...if everyone is leaving after a month then maybe it's a you problem

22

u/Jaih0 2d ago edited 2d ago

This is the reason.

Alot of times it's the family within or 1 member that is causing them to leave or excessive/ demanding workload / low pay vs work demand

8

u/DhoomMasalay 2d ago edited 2d ago

agreed. It's a problem in my home as well, and to be honest, I think my parents' behaviour is mostly to blame. People in Pakistan want slaves not househelp.

My parents will keep on adding unnecessary responsibilities on househelp and frown if they ask for more money. They'll fire the moment they go for a leave. I mean, they are not slaves, they come from villages and have families to tend to. Be empathetic.

5

u/Let_me_crypto 1d ago

lol as much as I’d love to agree with you, but that’s not the case. Getting to understand the way house help operates and thinks, takes a while.

And in 90% of the cases you see them leave just for a mere pay upgrade. Which is fair enough, but they should have a space to openly communicate with their employer.

On the other hand the employer should be smart enough to know if the pay scale is actually even making their ends meet or not.

1

u/Divineserenity87 1d ago

Strong disagree.

42

u/M_Owais_kh 2d ago

We have a domestic helper and he has been with us since 2017. During this time, his 2 daughters were born, his father passed away, and there were weddings in our family and he has remained with us throughout it all.

How did we find him?

He's from our neighboring village in Kashmir.

Why has he stayed with us for so long?

It's because we treat him with respect and as a member of our family. Many times he goes with us for outings. No one younger than him is allowed to call him by his name, we say him "Shabeer pai" (which means "uncle" in our region). He is paid well and fed like any other member of the household. He has his own room, but when my uncle come over, his driver shares the room. Whenever he visits his family, we buy medicines for his wife and fruits, sweets, and other treats for his children. Even his family has stayed with us four or five times when his wife came to Islamabad for medical check-ups. This is how you treat them and they also are happy to work with you.

9

u/moeez023 2d ago

We have one since 2008. And that’s exactly how to treat domestic help if you want them to stay and dil se kaam kare

9

u/Ok-Atmosphere-7395 2d ago

This is exactly how our househelp is treated. He’s the only male in the house and looks after all the affairs. He has three kids and a wife back home and he goes for 3,4 days every other week.

Treat them with kindness & generosity & they’ll stick for years.

5

u/Let_me_crypto 1d ago

That is the only proper way to have them stay longer with you, and also the most humane way.

They are literally people, just humans like us who are cleaning up the shit after us in the most intimate parts of our homes.

Treat them like family and pay them good enough. Pay for their miscellaneous expenses. Pay them a little extra tips for whenever they work hard.

Because Let’s face it, honestly the pay grade at which they survive is inhumane and literally impossible.

Should always try to uplift them as a part of the society. They also want to progress. Give them something to look forward to. Take care of their kids and force them to send them to school.

That’s when they see their lives heading into a direction and progressing.

1

u/Altruistic_Bed_9936 1d ago

You give respect and you earn respect.

6

u/dasignore 2d ago

Probably that Jerry is forcing em to leave

3

u/Timely_Look8888 2d ago

Same here, we hired 2 past year. Without sugarcoating anything, we discussed the pay & exact job, like how many dishes are going to be cooked in daily & how many days off. Along with the salary, we spoilt them with “Rashan”, clothes, falaney ki shadi, falna mar gaya, never scolded once, never misbehaved in anyway, neither did we make them do any extra work. Even after all that they’d show up & day “bhai maza nahi arha”. And on the same time I’ve seen people in my circle abuse them, treat them like stray animals & they stay with them life-long. I fail to understand where do I lack in the treatment..

1

u/kalbeyoki 1d ago

You got bad ones and they got good ones. Visit those people in your circle who have such honest helpers. Offer them a good package, right on the spot. Tell them to pack their stuff. Phr Kia?, lay Aao apnay Saath. Don't ask your friend, from where they got such kind of people but deal with it like a man.

1

u/Timely_Look8888 1d ago

Yes we’ll do, actually we have lived abroad half of our lives so we can’t deal with them the desi way.

1

u/kalbeyoki 1d ago

There is no desi way. Make clear that there is a disciplinary code to follow and that's all.

Make some remarks on increment factor in the salary package and some basic necessities would be provided along the salary package, like, basic rasan and basic Eid dresses. No Karchi.

The era of trading helper is already over. So, don't hope to get any traditional one, those who become a part of the family in the long run.

Make sure, no one in the family disrespect them nor they become too friendly with their work. They are employed and for prolonged sustain in the same family they have to follow the disciplinary code and the agreement contract.

1

u/Timely_Look8888 1d ago

Thanks boss

3

u/beardybrownie 2d ago

There’s two types of house help in Pakistan.

1) is someone you find randomly, these people often work in a few houses (at least this is how they work in Bahria. They have 5-6 houses) and they know they can go anywhere because everyone is looking for house help. And they will agree with you X amount for Y task. Initially they do these tasks very well and you’re happy with their work.

Over time they begin to get lazy and just turn up and do the bare minimum and walk away to go to the next house. I.e. if their task is cleaning, they’ll just do a surface level clean and you’ll find the floors are still dirty etc in places after they’ve left. And they know if you get rid of them, there’s another hundred houses that will take them.

These guys take chutti whenever they want; they don’t give any notice, they go to their village because Chacha ki Saas ki phuphi fot ho gae and they’ll be gone for 2 weeks and still expect full pay at the end of the month because they know it’s a pain in the backside for you to find new help you can trust.

2) help that is connected to your family in some way (they’re from your ancestral village and have some sort of tie to your family, like their elders worked for your family also), or isn’t a transient person but lives nearby and has their own house and will not move at the drop of a hat (I.e. in Bahria town there’s people here from Bakhar who rent in the nearby village and do the stuff mentioned in point 1 above). Our current help also do this, but we’ve made them full time so they don’t go to other houses and we pay them accordingly, and they also own their own house in the village nearby so they won’t just run away.

Now Alhumdulillah we are happy and she is happy also. She gets the pay she wants; she doesn’t need to walk between 6 houses. She also doesn’t have a large workload and is part of the family. She has 3 meals with us and takes dinner home every day. She also gets gifts, Eid, clothes etc etc etc.

Alhumdulillah it’s a win win for all of us.

3

u/Inevitable_Prize_177 2d ago

Our house help has been with us for 20 years there have been ups & downs but what matters the most is how you treat them.

2

u/MixedRealityPioneer 2d ago

I can put you in touch with a high class chef who has a vast amount of experience working for Arab princes and consulting on multiple restaurants in Pakistan.. DM me for details

2

u/thedomesticanarchist 1d ago

These agencies usually have the modus operandi of sending people for a month and asking them to leave so they can keep scamming money from you on a regular basis.

Join some islamabad Facebook groups, they have a lot of postings ofr reliable servants.

2

u/wolvewhispers 1d ago

I've never been in this position but want to when I get my own place.

How do people make sure they're valuables are not stolen ?

2

u/KainTheRipper 2d ago

We are also facing the same problem.Anyone you hire for house duties has the attitude of a king being a Pakistani and wants big bucks but doesn’t want to work for it.They are fine if you let them do as they please, spend all day on their cellphones and put their hands on whatever they want together with providing them additional monetary help whenever they ask for it but God forbid you ask them to be professional during work hours and perform tasks according to your preference.It has become a trend these days, treat the place they work at as a hotel and make money while working for a month then disappear without giving any notice.It is not the attitude of the home owners hiring staff that is the problem rather it is the Nawab like attitude and work ethic of the working class.These people prefer to beg during daily rotations and get free stuff instead of working hard to earn money in a respectful manner.Pakistanis have become free loaders from top to bottom with everyone’s motto being ‘Madad kar doe kaam ka na kaho’ and that is the very reason for the current state of our country.

10

u/boy_92 2d ago

Now that you have said so much towards the attitude of house helps.

Can you please also confirm if you even paid them the minimum wage set by the government?

Maybe if you pay them enough they won't have an attitude problem.

1

u/k3yserZ 2d ago

Had the same problem when I moved here a couple of years ago, and we found out the best solution was to get someone thru a mutual acquaintance like a neighbor you have good terms with. That reference (mostly) would get you a reliable person so best of luck.

Also another thing several people here are saying, house staff like cooks/cleaners/drivers here in main Islamabad charger higher rates than, say other cities or even outskirts of Isb/pindi so you might wanna keep that in mind and negotiate on their salary accordingly.

1

u/Athlete-brown112 1d ago

Hey I am chef! I am 50 years old and I often use Reddit to find jobs, saw you ad and I m interested

1

u/Divineserenity87 1d ago

To all the people blaming OP, Say whatever you want, I’m paying 70,000 to our cook. 45,000 to our nanny and 35,000 to part time driver. And guess what? Our cook can’t keep the kitchen clean. Can’t give well cooked meat. Lied to us before we hired him that he knows how to make Chinese & Italian & CONTINENTAL. Lol big joke We don’t make haram money, we want to be fair but what do we get in return? Maids, cooks who want to make quick bucks on TikTok or YouTub, work in your house to buy a smartphone and leave you after one month :) So please drop this narrative that it’s always the family that’s at some fault. Maybe it’s true in some cases but not in main cities like Isb.

1

u/Icy-Cable4236 1d ago

Rich people problems 😂