Successful management of household staff requires a good hiring process. The most effective domestic staffing agencies can guide you through the appropriate steps and find a sufficient number of strong candidates at the time you need them. A quality household staffing company also has the resources and systems in place to make preliminary procedures, hiring and long-term management of household employees convenient and efficient for customers.
Here are some tips to help you identify the best available staffing firm to provide you with skilled, reliable household workers who can meet your household’s unique needs.
- Determine the Kind of Domestic Staffing Company You Need.
First, decide whether you need household help temporarily or long-term. Also, think about whether you want domestic staff who are employed by you directly, or prefer to have workers who remain employees of the staffing company and work in your home on an assignment arrangement. Or, maybe a combination of these arrangements makes the best sense for your needs. Determining the types of workers and employment arrangements you need helps quickly narrow the range of agency choices.
- Research the Staffing Company’s Reputation.
Do your due diligence to ensure that the company is among the most well-established and reputable in the industry for your purposes. To find a staffing firm with a sound reputation, follow the same screening process you would use to hire any top-quality contractor. After you identify a company that appears to be a good fit for your needs, ask for customer references, and follow through with contacting several of those. Check BBB reports. Also, ask out how long the company has been in operation. Ask how long the current management has been in place, and inquire about their former employment.
- Ask How the Agency Recruits and Retains Workers.
It’s important to understand the staffing company’s methodologies for recruiting talented workers and for cultivating long-term employment relationships with them and minimizing turn-over. See the firm’s recruiting ads. Ask for details of the business’s worker engagement techniques. Ask about the role of their firm’s data system in management of domestic workers. Evaluate the company’s pay rates and benefits for both temporary and long-term employees, and/or contract positions. Be sure that compensation packages are sufficiently competitive to attract quality workers of the type(s) you need.
- Understand the Screening and Pre-Employment Testing the Agency Uses.
Confirm that the domestic staffing service performs pre-employment drug tests and background checks of candidates. If you’re looking to hire for a permanent position, or for one that may become permanent, confirm that you can be involved in the selection process, including asking interview questions. A number of domestic staffing agencies require initial skills tests for employment candidates, to help ensure that selected workers will provide quality service. Ask if the placement agency you’re considering has such skills assessment and development programs. Some also provide training in required job skills, perhaps including basic software use as well as workplace etiquette.
- Be Sure the Staffing Firm’s Representative Understands Your Needs.
A domestic employment firm should maintain a broad base of data on available qualified workers, to expedite the process of finding strong candidates and identifying the right person to hire within the shortest reasonable timeframe. If you are unsure about how many people are needed for the amount of work to be done, ask the staffing agency to help you determine the appropriate number of employees for the workload. Also, ask for a contact phone number that you can call after the company’s regular business hours, in case there is an emergency.
- Evaluate Your Impressions from Your Meeting with the Firm’s Representative.
Consider you impressions of the staffing firm’s representative, from your first phone or email communication. Keep in mind that, along with being service providers, domestic staffing agencies are employers. The firm you choose will be recruiting, screening and training employees that will work for you, either temporarily or long-term. Their personnel management practices impact the quality of your household employees. Therefore, it’s essential to be confident that the company you select to work with is optimally professional and ideally skilled in producing excellent outcomes for customers.
- Ensure That the Staffing Firm Provides All Necessary Employment and Tax Documentation.
Find out how much of the administrative responsibility the agency manages and how much of those processes and documentation you must handle on your own. Ask about the employment package that the staffing firm provides. Ideally, it should contain such essentials as employment offer letters, work agreements, communication logs, performance evaluations, and payroll and tax guidance documents.
Selecting a Domestic Staffing Agency
There are domestic staffing agencies with exceptional track records of success in serving customers’ needs for nannies, household managers, assistants, housekeepers, chefs and other domestic staff throughout the United States. These staffing services are operated by experienced, reliable industry professionals who are dedicated to ethical recruitment and staffing management best practices. Following the guidelines above can make the process of selecting the right staffing firm for your needs more efficient, and it can help make recruiting and management of household workers more successful.
