There are predictable bones of contention when people work in other people’s homes.
How do your employees learn their clients’ personal preferences for all the little things? Your clients’ satisfaction depends on your employees’ attention to detail and the quality of the time they spend together. We’ll show you how to figure out the interaction first, then take a look at the tasks.

Getting started

People may not be pleased that they need help. They lose privacy by having somebody in their home. They may feel disrespected and intruded upon in any number of ways. To offer the best services to your clients, you’ll want to learn their preferences for sociability and boundaries as well as what they want your employee to do. Focusing on these characteristics will help you select the employee most likely to fit well with each client.

Explain to each prospective client that you want to facilitate as harmonious a match as possible so you’re going to ask some detailed questions. Add that you’ll go over this information with the person you intend to send and will help the two of them get off to a good start. Also make clear that you’ll be available to assist at any point and that you want the client to let you know how things are going.

Fit questions

• Tolerance for strangers and differences: How do you feel about having a stranger in your home? Do gender, religion, appearance, marital status, sexual orientation, etc. make a difference?

Ask your client:

• How comfortable/anxious are you about having a stranger in your home? What have other people working in your home done that’s made you comfortable? Uncomfortable?
• Are you worried about being alone with this person?
• Are you worried about somebody working in your home while you are out?
• How would you like the helper to announce his/her arrival and departure?
• Should the helper let you know when he/she goes from one room to another? If he/she goes outside, to take the garbage out, for example?

Your goal here is to learn about your client’s worries. Don’t explain impracticalities or agency policies. Just listen. At the end, sum up what you’ve heard so your client knows you understand.

• Promptness: How important are promptness and timeliness to you?

Explain that your agency stresses promptness with all its employees, but a little flexibility is sometimes needed. How much does promptness matter to your client? Does your client believe people who are late are demonstrating rudeness or disrespect? Talk about this value up front. Some people are sticklers for punctuality and are really annoyed by lateness. Others aren’t. Some people resent altering routines to accommodate a late worker while others are not bothered about a little lateness.

Match for similar attitudes on punctuality. If your client is a stickler and your worker more casual, your client will be dissatisfied no matter how hard and well your worker does otherwise.

Ask your client:

• What time do you usually wake-up in the morning?
• What time do you usually go to bed?
• What is your normal daily routine?
• What days and times do you want an aide to work?
• How would you like the aide to fit into your routine?

• Cleaning: Is your client tidy or messy?

A gardener may do a beautiful job trimming hedges and edging lawns but may be careless about tidying up after the job. A housekeeper may leave floors sparkling but forget, in the rush to the next job, to put away all the cleaning supplies.

Is everything in your client’s home clean and in its place? Does your client have fragile, expensive, or breakable things? Does your client worry that an aide will move and break a treasured item while cleaning? If so, you’ll have to find a fastidious worker for this to be a good fit.

Are things in your client’s house a bit cluttered? Does your client worry that a helper will move or even throw out things?

Ask your client:

• How often do you like having your house cleaned?
• Do you want everything cleaned every time?
• You must have some beautiful pieces. How would you like these pieces taken care of?
• When the aide cleans, should everything go back exactly in its original place?
• Would you like any parts of your house to be more orderly? Would you like the aide to help with that? To organize with you? without you?
• Do you supply your own cleaning supplies? If not, which cleaning supplies do you want the aide to use?
• Where do you keep cleaning supplies?
• Would you like the aide to include washing, ironing, folding and putting clothes away as part of house cleaning?

• Noise: Does your client like peace and quiet or prefer a livelier environment?

Does your client keep the television or radio on for company, perhaps at a considerable volume? Or, does your client get annoyed by talking, traffic, music, or phone conversations preferring a calm, quiet home? How affected is your client by ambient noise and other people’s noise?

Many workers use noise as a way to pass time. Gardeners, electricians, or carpenters may play/blare a radio while working. Housekeepers may want to keep the television on while cleaning. These days it seems like everyone talks on a cell phone while working, arguing with nearest and dearest or having emotional conversations with love interests or contentious ones with children.

If your employee likes to watch TV, play the radio or chat on a cell phone to pass the time while cleaning, this can be a real fit problem. Before you place a worker with a client, find out what noise is okay with the client. May the worker watch TV? play music? How loudly? Are there types of music that are just not acceptable? Is classical music okay but rap not okay? What about headphones? They stifle the noise but also block communication. And, what about cell phones and personal conversations?

Ask your client:

• Do you enjoy watching television or listening to certain music?
• Would it bother you if the aide keeps the television on low while working?
• What types of music do you prefer?
• If music bothers you, would you mind if the aide listens to music with earphones while cleaning?
• Are there any types of television shows or music that should never be on?
• May the aide chat on a cell phone while working?

• Familiarity: Does your client see casual conversation with the helper as a form of companionship, a burden, or inappropriate familiarity?

Agencies often list companionship as one of the services their helpers provide, and the helpers often make valiant attempts to engage their clients in conversation. Similarly, extroverted aides, repair people, and taxi drivers chat simply because that’s what extroverts do.

If the client is lonely, the conversation may be a welcome relief. If not, it can be an imposition and an annoyance. Age, education, and different interests can also affect the client’s desire to chat. Do your employee and your client have common interests? Are they likely to enjoy getting to know each other? Do caution your employees about revealing too much personal information—polite clients may feel obligated to listen to conversations even though they feel inappropriately familiar.

Ask your client:

• What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?
• Do you enjoying chatting? Do you enjoy listening to somebody else’s stories?
• Do you have a favorite restaurant, movie, or television show that you enjoy talking about?
• Are there any topics that you do not enjoy talking about?
• Should the aide talk while working?

• Boundaries: What’s the difference between being with a friend and being with an employee/client?

No matter what level of conversation occurs, people who work in others’ homes are involved in intimate activities with non-intimates. They know about personal habits and shortcomings—things the client would share only with close friends and relatives under better circumstances. How can your employee honor boundaries with clients? What is comfortable for the client? How reciprocal should the relationship be? What topics are off limits? How much of your employee’s personal life does your client want to hear about?

Ask your client:

• Are there any topics that should be off limits to the aide?
• Do you mind if the aide talks about family and friends?
• Would you like conversations to be limited to certain times or topics? Are there things you would like to keep confidential?

• Eating expectations: What happens at mealtimes?

Should workers eat in the house? Do they bring their own food? Do they put their food in the refrigerator? Does the client have to offer coffee, tea, water? Does the client feel obligated and burdened by the need to offer something to drink?

Some people readily offer coffee and a snack to employees and may even welcome the conversation that accompanies a shared cup of coffee. Others don’t mind somebody putting a sandwich in the refrigerator or getting a glass of water but would resent having to cater and host coffee and meal breaks. Still others may want the kitchen off limits to workers and may not want them to eat on the premises.

If your employee is preparing meals for the client, should he/she prepare enough for both of them? Should your employee eat with the client? Elsewhere? At the same time? Before or after the client eats?

Ask your client:

• Should the aide provide his/her own food? If so where should the aide store it during the shift?
• Do you plan to have the aide cook and shop for food, with or without your help?
• Would you like the aide to eat meals with you or do you prefer eating alone, with family, or with friends?
• Should the aide prepare the meal for both of you or bring food to prepare separately for him/herself?
• When would you like the aide to eat and where?
• Are there any foods you would not want in the house? Do you have allergies to any foods?

• Bathroom use: Is your client comfortable with others using the bathroom?

If there is more than one bathroom in the client’s home, the client may want the helper only to use the one in the hall. If having an outsider use any bathroom is a big deal for the client, can you provide help in short segments, perhaps an hour or two a day, rather than six to eight hours in the house. Explain that your client can’t forbid use of a bathroom while showing you understand your client’s discomfort about this issue. If you can schedule visits to make the need less likely, things will go better for your client, your employee and you.

Ask your client:

• Would it bother you if the aide uses a bathroom in your home?
• Which one (if there’s more than one in the home)?
• If you don’t want the aide to use a bathroom in your home, let’s work out a schedule for short visits so the aide can use a bathroom elsewhere.

• Smoking: How does smoking affect your client and your employee?

Does either smoke? If so, does the other hate/have allergies to smoke? If so, skip this match.

Some people simply want no smoke in or near the house while others are happy to share a smoke break. May your employee smoke in the house? Near the house? If your employee goes outside to smoke on a break, should he/she go far enough away that smoke doesn’t blow into an open window? If the employee goes that far away, he/she won’t hear call for help. Will this absence create a bone of contention? How many smoking breaks per shift are OK?

If your employee doesn’t smoke but your client does, will the smoke bother your employee?

Ask your client:

• Do you smoke?
• (If the aide smokes and your client doesn’t) When and where should the aide take smoking breaks?
• Will it bother you if the aide leaves the house to smoke?

• Work ethic: What causes your client to feel that people aren’t working hard enough or taking their work seriously enough?

Is it punctuality? Few if any breaks? A willingness to stay late if something unexpected comes up?

Ask your client:

• What annoys you about people’s work habits?
• If the aide finishes the assigned tasks early, what else would you like the aide to do?
• How many days a week do you anticipate needing our services?
• Except for emergencies, how often do you anticipate needing extra hours, later in the evening?
• What time do you expect the aide to arrive in the morning?
• If the aide is unable to stay late when you need extra time, how will that affect you?

• Compatibility: What level of compatibility is important? What areas of difference are unacceptable?

Age and income differences between older people and those who work for them can make compatibility difficult. While it is unlikely your employee and your client will be fully compatible, ask about music, television shows, outings, topics of conversation and other areas of interest to your client. Make sure your employee will honor these lest you create an impossible fit.

Ask your client:

• Do you like to read? What types of books?
• What’s your favorite radio station?
• What topics are most interesting to you?
• What topics do you prefer not to talk about?
• Do you like to go to movies, concerts, presentations, book stores, or other outside activites?
• What interests would you like to share with your aide?

• Authority: How is help offered?

Many people find accepting help difficult for all sorts of reasons. They may find it more trouble to train the helper than to do it themselves. They may believe the helper won’t do the work exactly the way they want it done or an assistant may intrude on privacy. Or they may like to do things themselves and not rely on others. They may not want to cede control over their daily life much less have an aide tell them what to do and when to do it.

Informality, common these days, may feel more like haste and disrespect. Does your client want to be addressed in a certain way? May you use your client’s first name? May the aide? Does certain language (“guy” or “dude,” for example) imply disrespect to your client?

Ask your client:

• Would you like me to call you by your first or last name?
• Would you like the aide to call you by your first or last name?
• Aides can do and help with lots of things. If the aide sees something to help with, should the aide offer or wait until you ask?
• How much would you like the aide to help in your daily routine?
• Would you like the aide to help with small projects around the house?
• When you have an appointment, would you like some assistance getting to and from it?
• If the aide is doing something that doesn’t suit you, how can I make it easy for you to tell me?