Research Analysis into The Most Sought Attributes of a Maid: The Nigerian Context

It can be argued by deduction that there has been an exponential growth in the number of working women in Nigeria in recent times. However, there seems to be a perceived struggle among these women to balance job needs and keeping their homes healthy.

Keeping the house clean can be challenging due to time unavailability and lack of physical fitness. This is where the domestic maid or help comes in. A domestic maid or domestic help should assist with keeping the home clean and organized; Therefore certain attributes are ideal in domestic maids or helps.

When it comes to hiring domestic help, most employer can be said to look at the usual attributes at the onset. Attributes such as punctuality, reliability, dependability, and a willingness to learn new skills. Although such attributes are ideally to be a part of every maid, they may not be enough as other personal qualities or values like being open-minded, sensitive, humble, reliable, might be necessary too.

On one end of the Maid recruitment spectrum are the myriads of attributes that an ideal maid can possess, and on the other end are the experiences that some employers have been fortunate or not so fortunate to have with domestic helps or maids. There have been several adverse incidences of maids stealing, lying, and harassment as a result influencing the perceptions of the Employer and any existing bias(es) that might be held.

Abisola (2022) conducted research using Survey Planet (www.surveyplanet.com), which shows the three most sought attributes domestic help must possess before hiring. In the survey, 50 respondents assessed the attributes of maids. The research results show that being hardworking and honest takes 40.38%, Godliness represents 31.8%, while other features such as flexibility, readiness, and Intelligence account for 27.82 %.

According to the survey, the value of being hardworking, honesty, and alignment with Divinity (Godliness) are most significantly desired attributes sought out in the process of hiring a maid. All respondents gave their multivariant responses which must be due to their experiential knowledge and an area for further research analysis.