Foreign domestic worker agencies in Singapore will have to undergo two new grading schemes in order to raise their service standards, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) has said.
These new initiatives were announced at an employment agency seminar held on Wednesday (Mar 9).
MOM and the Consumers Association of Singapore (CASE) will grade these agencies in a new scheme called Trustmark, which is scheduled to start by the second half of 2017.
Both MOM and CASE will jointly decide on the grading assessment criteria and maid agencies are expected to display their allocated grades prominently.
Under Trustmark, agencies will be assessed in areas such as outcomes of proportion of foreign domestic workers who complete their contract, and having established processes to help employers find a worker that suits the household needs.
Agencies will also be required to go through the Trustmark grading should they want to renew their licenses.
In the second scheme set to be launched by the middle of this year, employers will rate an agency based on their service level and quality.
Customer ratings gathered from the employers will be publicly available on MOM’s Employment Agencies and Personnel Search E-Service page. The maid agency’s results from this scheme could also be taken into account when their Trustmark grade is assessed.
ssandrea@sph.com.sg
