What fair work looks like in home cleaning

Fair work in home cleaning is mostly about time and respect. It means asking for what fits in the hours booked, leaving room for the cleaner to travel to their next home without rushing, keeping tasks safe, and raising problems through the service rather than with the person at your door. Households control more of this than they might think.

None of it is complicated, and most of it also gets you a better clean. A cleaner who is not rushed, not at risk and knows what you want does more careful work.

Realistic time for the work

A thorough clean has more steps than it looks. Our cleaners work to a written 75-point housekeeping standard, which takes about 140 minutes to work through properly. Every extra task, such as ironing, a fridge wipe-out or a balcony scrub, comes out of the same session.

So the fair question is not "how much can I fit in" but "what matters most in the time I have booked". Put your priorities in order, and accept that the last items on a long list may wait for next time. If the list is genuinely longer than the session, the answer is a longer session or a second visit, not a faster cleaner. Our home cleaning checklist shows what a full visit involves.

It also helps to be realistic about the first visit, when a cleaner is learning your home as well as cleaning it.

Time to travel between homes

A part-time cleaner may visit more than one home in a day. When jobs are packed back to back with no gap, the cleaner has two bad choices: leave your home early, or arrive late and stressed at the next one.

This is why a fair schedule builds in travel. At HomeMaster, a cleaner's back-to-back jobs are spaced with at least 30 minutes between them, and an hour around lunchtime, plus 30 more minutes for every 5 km between the two homes. A cleaner going from a flat in Tampines to one in Jurong has a very different journey from one going to the next block, and the gap reflects that.

For households, the fair part is simple: the session ends at the time you booked. Asking a cleaner to stay on "for ten more minutes" can make them late for someone else. Changes made at short notice affect a cleaner's day in the same way, which is why notice matters when you move or cancel a visit; our guide to rescheduling or cancelling a cleaner explains the rules.

Water, breaks and basic comfort

Small things make a long session easier. Let your cleaner drink water and use the toilet without asking. Give them somewhere to leave a bag and shoes. On a hot afternoon, a fan in the room they are working in is a kindness that costs you nothing.

It is also fair not to hover. Checking in at the start and end is useful. Following someone from room to room is not.

Safe tasks only

Some requests put a cleaner at risk, and a good arrangement keeps them off the list.

• Working at height. No standing on chairs, stools or tables to reach high shelves, fans or light fittings. If something high needs cleaning, provide a proper step ladder or leave it.
• Windows. No leaning out of windows or reaching the outside of windows in a high-rise flat.
• Heavy lifting. No moving wardrobes, beds or sofas alone.
• Products. Keep products in their original, labelled bottles and never ask for different products to be mixed together.
• Pets. Secure an animal that might bite, scratch or bolt.

Clear instructions and fair feedback

A cleaner cannot meet expectations that were never said. Give a short list of priorities, the rooms or things not to touch, and any product rules for your surfaces. Our guide on how to brief your cleaner has a simple format.

When something is missed, be specific and calm: "the grout behind the toilet was not done" can be fixed next time; a general complaint cannot. Go through the service where there is one, so the problem is recorded and handled once. Say when things are good, too.

Work through the company, not on the side

The legal side of fairness matters. MOM's Household Services Scheme lets approved companies employ migrant workers to provide part-time household services such as home cleaning. When MOM made the scheme permanent in 2021, it counted 76 participating companies serving more than 10,000 households. Our guide to the Household Services Scheme explains how it works.

MOM's Work Permit conditions say a holder must work only for the employer, and in the occupation and sector, specified on their permit, and must not take part in any other business. So offering your cleaner extra paid work outside the company, however kindly meant, puts them at risk of breaking those conditions. If you want more help, book more hours through the service.

How we try to make it work at HomeMaster

Our scheduling leaves the travel gaps described above between a cleaner's jobs, so nobody is rushed across the island. Each visit is one cleaner for 2, 3 or 4 hours, and when a home needs more, we suggest a longer session or another session rather than asking one person to rush.

The agencies whose cleaners carry out our bookings are on MOM's Household Services Scheme list, checked against the list updated as of 1 September 2026. If something is not right, tell Helen, our AI assistant on WhatsApp, rather than having a difficult conversation at the door. If you do not get on with your cleaner, she moves you to someone else, which is fairer to both of you than a mismatch that drags on. Our part-time cleaner page explains how regular visits work.