This post is dedicated to families looking for domestic help as a nanny/housekeeper.
It contains a step-by-step guide to hiring a nanny housekeeper.
Hiring a nanny housekeeper might be suitable for busy families whose children go to nursery or school. While the children are at school, the nanny can also take care of domestic chores.
Step #1: The Salary Research & Planning
Is this a temporary position or a permanent position? For clarity, we’ll just follow full-time or part-time positions that are permanent.
The salaries depend quite a lot on your location. Families based in London will need to pay between £40,000 to £55,000 gross per year for a full-time live-out nanny housekeeper or £35,000 to £45,000 for a similar live-in position.
Families outside London, depending on their location, could hire a similar candidate with up to 15% less.
Part-time positions are billed at a minimum of around £15/hour, gross.
Please note that the above numbers are indicative and fluctuate, depending on the demand. They’re also at the very low end of the scale, meaning that these wages will only attract less experienced candidates. Targeting the low end of the scale will also take more time to recruit.
More experienced candidates can charge 20-30% more.
What other costs are there?
You need to factor in the employer’s NI (about 10% of the gross wage), the payroll fees (about £200-£300 per year), pension (depending on what you negotiate with the candidate) and the recruitment fees if you want to use a consultant like HazeltonClive (starting at 12.8% of the gross salary).
For example, for a housekeeper nanny whom you negotiated a £40,000 annual gross wage, your total costs would be about:
£40,000 gross wage
£4,264.20 employer’s NI
£350 payroll
£6,000 recruitment fee
? pension, as negotiated
__________
Total: £50,614.2 / year
You also need to register with the HMRC to become an employer. The payroll company will assist you with this.
You should allocate several days to the whole process (reviewing the job description, advertising, filtering, interviewing, trial day, training etc.).
Step #2: Requirements
This step is most of the time overlooked by the families that are looking to hire someone, especially when it’s the first time. It often happens that employers forget about certain requirements that they might need from the candidates.
For example, a dynamic schedule that wouldn’t work for the future housekeeper nanny. Or the need to be able to drive manual cars. Or being fluent in a certain language.
It’s very important to write all the requirements in the job description, to save everyone’s time and to avoid disappointment.
Step #3: The Search
It’s very important to note that from the moment you start the search, you need to be extremely prompt and schedule the interviews & trials on short notice as it’s a very competitive market and good candidates get hired fast.
It’s also very important to generate a healthy flow of targeted candidates. You can do that by posting on as many job boards as possible, and performing laser-targeted advertising and media buying. Agencies like HazeltonClive, already have a pool of candidates and partnerships that can deliver candidates from other sources as well, like word-of-mouth. We will also leverage Facebook ads, Facebook recruitment, Indeed, Gumtree, Adzuna, Jora, DWP, Google Ads, Remarketing lists, partnerships and so on.
During the interviews, you need to make sure to ask all the right questions that would help you understand whether the candidates are just mercenaries or are passionate about their work.
When using an agency like HazeltonClive, we would initially interview the candidates and we’d only present you the relevant ones. We would also make sure to generate a job description that sells and attracts as many candidates as possible.
Step #4: The Trial
Immediately after the interviews, the trials with the top 2-3 candidates should be scheduled.
You should always be present during the trial to supervise the candidates and to get to know them better.
Step #5: Background Checks
Since you’re going to welcome this person to your house, you need to make sure that you do all that you can to avoid a bad experience.
That is leveraging all the information sources to learn more about that candidate: extended DBS, county court judgments, credit checks, convictions, license checks, various registries, previous payslips and calling previous employers.
When you hire a recruitment agency, they will be able to perform all these background checks for you. HazeltonClive performs international background checks for recently immigrated candidates. We can also provide Covid tests to candidates before they start working for you.
Step #6: The Contract, Training and Feedback
The next step is signing the employment contract. Make sure that you don’t forget about the first months of the trial phase.
Training and feedback are crucially important to maintain a long-term relationship.
Weekly two-way feedback sessions should always be held and only in private. You should never provide negative feedback in front of other colleagues.
When hiring a housekeeper/nanny with HazeltonClive, we will also provide you with a framework of feedback and organisation between the family and the candidate. This includes a long list of interview questions, feedback methodology and organisational frameworks.
We will also save you precious time, simplify the entire process for you and generate a much broader list of candidates.
Start hiring today the right housekeeper/nanny for your family that will match your budget and lifestyle!
