10 Feb Are You Setting Your Household Employees Up For Success?

When you hire a new employee for your household, it’s easy to get caught up in your busy schedule and throw them into the role without proper training or onboarding. Effective onboarding gives new hires the tools, resources, and guidance to ramp up to full productivity. Here are some proven ways that you can use to set your household employees up for success.

Create an Exceptional Onboarding Experience

The first few days and weeks at a new job are critical to helping your new household employee feel confident and capable. A thorough onboarding process assimilates them into your home and system. Once you are done with orientation, give them a comprehensive tour of your property so they learn the layout and where to find things. Use this opportunity to introduce them to any other employees or supervisors. It will help them build an understanding of the hierarchy inside the household.

Help them review and understand their job description. Clearly outline their responsibilities and your expectations. If necessary, give it to them in writing so they can refer back to it in case of confusion. Explain the household system in detail. Review your preferences and cleaning procedures, laundry, shopping, etc. The more details you can provide upfront, the more confidently your household employees can function.

Encourage them to ask questions as they arise. Let them know that you are approachable whenever they have any doubts. You can schedule regular check-in meetings or informal opportunities to provide feedback and answer questions during onboarding. It helps your new hire fully integrate into your household operations.

Onboarding equips your new hires with the training, tools, and support as they learn about their roles. Whether the onboarding is handled by the estate manager, the chief of staff, or the HR manager, everyone should contribute to setting up the candidate for success.

Designate a Peer Mentor

Pairing your new employee with a seasoned peer mentor gives them a dedicated resource for answering their questions and learning your household customs. The peer mentor acts as a guide and offers insider tips that only come from on-the-job experience. They can shadow their mentor to observe, then slowly take on tasks themselves with supervision.

Choose a mentor who truly enjoys training others and takes pride in their work. Find someone with patience for answering many questions and a knack for explaining things thoroughly. Match new hires with a peer mentor who will be working together regularly. It helps create a collaborative team.

The peer mentor should train the new employee on day-to-day tasks like your preferred cleaning methods, laundry procedures, organization systems, and equipment operation. They can also provide important insight into your communication style and unwritten household rules that one needs to be familiar with.

Having an experienced household employee provide one-on-one mentoring reduces the learning curve for new hires and allows them to contribute meaningfully much faster. The investment of your staff’s time pays off through increased productivity, fewer mistakes, and less continual supervision needed from you during onboarding.

Set Clear Expectations

Openly communicating your expectations avoids confusion and helps your new household employee meet your standards immediately. It helps them be a more productive member of your household.

Provide clear guidelines on work hours, duties, performance standards, communication preferences, and household policies. See that they understand exactly what you need from them and how you like things done. Setting standards upfront gets everyone on the same page so your new employee can immediately fulfill your needs.

Provide a Detailed Estate Manual

A well-crafted estate manual provides guidelines for consistent operations and maintenance. Include detailed instructions on daily and weekly tasks like cleaning procedures, landscaping needs, care of amenities like pool, steam rooms, etc, and appliance and household system operations. To avoid confusion, provide clear guidelines on your preferences for temperature, lighting, pantry, and bar stocking.

List emergency and utility contact numbers, waste disposal, and recycling programs. The manual must have sorted and categorized information for easy retrieval. The document must be concise with explicit language. You must update it continuously as systems and protocols change. Your household staff can refer to this manual and fulfill their roles efficiently when in doubt.

Give New Growth Opportunities

Household employees who feel challenged and see opportunities for advancement are more engaged and fulfilled. Look for ways you can provide growth opportunities to your staff. When employees know they can grow within the household, they are more likely to push themselves harder.

An effective way for them to build additional skills is through cross-training. They can learn added competencies and use them to expand their role over time. Involve eager staff members in special household projects beyond their regular duties. It gives them valuable experience outside their daily tasks. Once an employee has mastered their core responsibilities, start delegating new challenges appropriate to their skills. Regularly ask for input from your staff on existing household operations and implement any of their ideas.

Let them know when you notice extra effort, initiative, or work that exceeds expectations. Even a gesture as simple as a thank you note can help them feel valued for their contribution. Reward growth and successes with promotions, raises, bonuses, or other incentives at performance review times. Investing in your staff’s advancement makes them feel like you genuinely care about their job satisfaction and future with your household. It gives them a sense of ownership and motivates them to continue putting in more effort.

Maintain Frequent Communication

Consistent and open communication with your household employees builds connections essential for a smoothly functioning household. Maintain an open dialogue through regularly scheduled one-on-one meetings to touch base on performance and discuss any concerns. Use the opportunity to find new and collaborative ways that focus on improvements. Try to fit in some informal check-ins during the workday.

You can set up a centralized digital platform for larger households for real-time updates. Including your household staff will be noisy, so it is better to delegate the role to staff with leadership to maintain communication with you and keep you updated. Solicit input from staff at team meetings to keep them involved and ideas flowing. Provide positive feedback when you see great work and constructive feedback to help them grow.

The key is making yourself approachable so employees feel comfortable coming to you with questions, requests, and ideas before minor issues become major problems. When there is open communication and transparency from you and your team, it fosters mutual understanding, trust, and effectiveness.

Feedback is an excellent tool that helps you guide your household staff. It lets employees know what they are doing well and where to improve. It helps remove any disconnects and guides everyone towards a common goal.

Find Their Motivations

Some of your employees may be motivated by learning new skills, while some like having freedom and flexibility in their work. Earning incentives and advancement opportunities can drive some while receiving praise and recognition can guide some. Once you know what makes each person tick, you can use it to provide incentives that result in peak performance.

Build Strong Personal Relationships

Don’t underestimate the importance of personal relationships beyond just professional roles. Get to know your household employees as individuals. Ask about their families, interests, hobbies, and lives outside work. It must be genuine interest and not just lip service.

Share meals and include staff in family activities or outings when appropriate. Celebrate birthdays, work anniversaries, and other special occasions and milestones. When employees feel more like extended family than hired help, they are loyal and invested in the household’s success.

A personal connection builds trust and understanding that strengthens collaboration. Understand each person’s unique personality and style. Relationships make employees feel valued, which drives higher performance and retention.

Invest in Their Success

Taking an active interest in your employees’ career growth and investing in their success pays great dividends through increased engagement, performance, and retention. Provide training opportunities, coaching, and mentoring to help them strengthen their skills. You can offer tuition reimbursement for continuing education or gaining specialization.

Discuss professional goals regularly and offer training to advance those goals. Give them opportunities and new challenges when they’re ready. Create clear evaluation criteria so that promotions and raises are attainable.

Prioritize Their Wellbeing

Household employees put in long, hard hours supporting your family’s needs. Prioritizing their physical, mental, and emotional well-being shows you value them as individuals beyond just the work they provide.

Give them sufficient breaks during their work day. They must get adequate rest and meal times to recharge and rejuvenate. Allow vacation time, time off, and a flexible schedule whenever possible. If your job requires specialized equipment, see that they are functioning well. Ergonomic tools not only help them avoid strain but also enable them to work efficiently.

Discuss benefits like insurance, retirement plans, and PTO that support their needs. Respect their obligations outside work and give them time to fulfill them. Build a positive culture where employees feel appreciated and recognized. Your employees will work harder and stick around longer when they feel cared for and valued.

Following these steps, you create an environment that fosters a happy and productive household staff. It shows that you value them and care about their experience. The result will be loyal staff who feel confident excelling in their roles and maintaining the exceptional household you’ve built.

Riveter Consulting Group provides custom solutions to fulfill all your staffing requirements. From onboarding training, we have the tools to take your household employee to the next level. Contact us or call us at 1 855-444-2515 to know how we can help you staff your house with skilled employees who always give their best.