Initiatives to Raise Standards in Foreign Domestic Worker-Placing Employment Agencies

1. The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) has announced initiatives to further improve the professionalism of FDW-placing employment agencies (EAs). A new grading scheme called Trustmark and the Employment Agency Customer Rating system will be introduced for FDW-placing EAs. The initiatives were announced at an EA Seminar held today.
   
   Trustmark Grading Scheme
2. To encourage EAs to raise professionalism, improve the matching of FDWs to employers and facilitate successful placements, MOM will be partnering the Consumers Association of Singapore (CASE) to introduce a mandatory grading scheme, known as “Trustmark”, by the second half of 2017. All FDW-placing EAs will then be required to undergo Trustmark grading before they renew their licences. EAs will receive a grade which the EA shall display prominently to help employers make an informed decision when selecting an EA.
   
   Employment Agency Customer Ratings
3. MOM and CASE will jointly develop the grading assessment criteria, in consultation with the industry. Under Trustmark, EAs will be assessed in areas such as outcomes of proportion of FDWs who completes their contract and having established processes to help employers find an FDW that suits the household needs.
4. As customers’ feedback can be a good gauge of the service levels of EAs, MOM is developing an Employment Agency Customer Rating system to be introduced in the middle of this year. The rating system will provide EAs with feedback on their service levels to help them improve, while giving prospective employers another source of information to aid their EA selection process. Customer ratings gathered from the employers will be aggregated and made public on MOM’s Employment Agencies and Personnel Search eService page. The results from the rating system could be taken into account when assessing the Trustmark grade of an EA.