The short answer: staff stay where the money is boring and the treatment is decent. Nine habits cover it: pay on a fixed date, show the breakdown, grant leaves without drama, pay overtime and extras, give an unprompted annual increment, give the festival bonus, handle advances generously and transparently, fix problems in private conversations, and treat the work as employment rather than favour. None of them is expensive; all of them are rarer than they should be — which is exactly why they work.
What losing a good worker actually costs
Run the numbers once and retention stops being a soft topic. Replacing a trusted housekeeper or cook means weeks of searching and trials (the full hiring grind), re-training on your household's specifics, a fresh trust-building period before she holds keys, and often a higher market salary than the increment that would have kept your last one. For a nanny, add a child's disrupted attachment. Against that, everything below is cheap.
The nine habits
1. Pay on a fixed date — treat it like rent
Nothing erodes the relationship faster than chasing salary. Domestic workers run tight monthly budgets; the 1st means the 1st. If you'll be travelling, pay early, never late.
2. Show the breakdown, every month
A WhatsApp payslip with attendance, earned amount, deductions, and net payable converts payday from negotiation to confirmation. Deductions shown as arithmetic don't feel like accusations — the formula takes the personal sting out.
3. Grant agreed leaves without theatre
If the deal is 2–4 paid leaves a month (the norm), granting them with a sigh cancels half their value. Sick days handled humanely are remembered for years.
4. Pay for extra work — unasked
Deep-clean before Diwali, a dinner party's extra dishes, guests for a week. Add a fair amount to that month's slip without being asked. It's the single loudest fairness signal you can send.
5. Give the increment before she asks
A 5–10% annual raise, offered unprompted at a fixed month, beats a bigger raise extracted through a quitting threat — for both sides. Market rates move (see the 2026 guide); staying under them invites poaching by your own neighbours.
6. Never miss the festival bonus
One month's salary at Diwali (or her community's major festival) is the custom nearly everywhere. It's budgetable, expected, and its absence is never forgotten.
7. Handle advances like a decent bank
Say yes when you reasonably can, record it at the moment of handover, deduct in humane instalments, and mark it cleared out loud. The 3-step advance system makes generosity sustainable — which is the trick, because sustainable generosity is what retains.
8. Correct in private, and about the work
Feedback lands fine when it's specific, private, and about the task — and corrodes everything when delivered in front of guests or family. Same rule as any workplace, because this is one.
9. Respect the employment
Learn her full name. Ask before changing her hours. Give notice (and severance by custom — typically a month's pay) if circumstances end the arrangement. Workers describe employers to each other in exactly these terms, and your reputation in the building is your future hiring pool.
The thread through all nine: records
Notice that most of these habits are really record-keeping with manners. Punctual pay needs a computed amount ready on the 1st. Transparent breakdowns need daily attendance. Fair leave handling needs leaves counted. Advance generosity needs advances tracked. That's the quiet case for running your household staff on a system: StaffAround keeps the attendance, applies the formula, tracks the advances, and produces the payslip — so the human parts (the bonus, the increment, the sick day waved off) arrive on a foundation of numbers nobody argues about. Free for up to 2 staff.