This is perhaps one of the least discussed, but most rapidly growing, areas of domestic employment. Domestic security staff look just like any other domestic employees but have additional specific skills that help keep your family safe and give you peace of mind.

What do domestic security staff do?

Forget the image of a bulky bodyguard with a barely concealed shoulder holster, our security staff look like any other domestic employees. The majority of their work is preventive – for example a Household Manager with a security remit may be advising on travel plans to maximise safety, checking that family activities don’t leave individuals exposed to criminal activity and supervising household staff to ensure they are aware of security concerns and maintaining a safe, risk-free environment.

Other security personnel may have more diverse functions:

Close Protection Assistant – we can provide professional, vetted and trained bodyguards for specific occasions or for permanent security detail.

Estate Manager – part of an estate manager’s commitment might be to undertake regular security surveys and audits, to keep themselves up to date with new forms of criminal activity and how to prevent or avoid it and to regularly update the structure of your premises to make it unappealing to criminals eg security lighting, spiny or noisy plants at strategic points, intercoms, CCTV and other ‘deter and impede’ elements that help make your home deeply unattractive to amateur trouble-makers and professional criminals alike.

Household Manager – in addition to other security concerns they may work with an Estate Manager to ensure location and security of household items is carefully considered and to meet any insurance criteria that protect your home and its contents. They are also responsible for collection of parcels, access to the home and basically ensuring the safety and security of your family.

Driver – whether you call them a driver or a chauffeur, a security driver has specialist training in both evasive manoeuvres and in logistics and route planning to enhance family safety alongside transport efficiency.

Executive Assistant or PA – these staff members may have responsibility for computer and network security which will include making sure family devices are regularly tested for malware and keeping home networks secure from intrusion.

How do I decide if I need security staff?

We can always help our clients to discover if their situation warrants the recruitment of security personnel. For many families this solution is something we can recommend before the point at which they experience something negative and traumatic that leads them to recognise the need for security input.  Decades of experience has helped us to understand where the security tipping points occur so we can be confident in helping families find the right domestic staff at the right time – before anything goes wrong.

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• Bilingualism is reported to deliver more logical thought, as the complex processes of speaking more than one language can enhance brain development
• Open-mindedness is a key feature of bilingualism – as children learn to recognise the value of more than one communication system, value set and culture, which feeds through to more open and creative problem solving
• Bilingualism brings career and life options as standard – two languages means at least two countries to live and work in and often more
• In surveys, bilingual children tend to have high self esteem and better problem solving skills, although it’s not clear if that’s a result of second language use or a result of having parents who invest in their children’s future in this way.

So, given that it’s such a great contributor to childhood wellbeing, how can a bilingual nanny help?

Play is learning too

Children learn through moment by moment interactions rather than by classroom sessions, so a bilingual nanny can give your child an effortless mastery of a second language without your child even realising that its happening.

Immersion is essential

‘Knowing’ a language and ‘speaking’ a language are different things. Speaking a language tends to be an intellectual process that requires conscious thought but knowing a language is instinctive and instantaneous. Being with somebody who speaks the second language gives your child the immersion to know another language from the inside out.

Cost effective learning

Because an experienced bilingual nanny gives your child context, they aren’t just learning a language, they learn the cultural context in which the language works. This means that they are getting three things at once:

• quality childcare
• language skills
• cultural input.

Just think about paying for each of those separately for a moment and you’ll see why a bilingual nanny is an amazing contribution to your household, at very little cost.

A nanny provides early education

Classroom learning is great, but it’s nothing like the kind of learning we do when we’re relaxed and happy. By giving your child the gift of a bilingual upbringing, you can not only offer them a wider and more opportunity rich future, you’re offering them the chance to begin their life-long learning much earlier than other children, so they develop the ability to move between languages and cultures way before their peers, which will make learning other skills, and other languages, much easier as they go through life.

At Mrs Hunt’s Staffing we have bilingual nannies of every kind, although our Russian and Spanish speaking nannies are rarely available for long, as these are highly desirable second languages at present. If we can help you find the perfect nanny who can also give your child confidence in a second language, please contact us today.

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Clients often come to us because they’ve recognised they have a need for domestic employees. Sometimes this is because they’ve had experience of the ease and reassurance that comes from having excellent domestic staff, and sometimes it’s because they can see they have a problem and aren’t sure how to resolve it.

The value of a live-in domestic couple

Given that so many of our clients are clear about the value of having live in domestic staff, it’s a surprise that few of them specifically mention the way that employing a domestic couple adds to family fun. However we’ve seen endless examples of this underrated facet of domestic support. For example, whether your domestic couple are chauffeur and housekeeper, butler and cook, gardener and nanny, household manager and personal assistant, the same basic elements always apply:

1 A domestic couple smooth out the bumps of daily life

Which means you can have fun in the moments that used to be stressful – for example the school run is often troublesome, but when you can leave it to your nanny or chauffeur to ensure your well-breakfasted, well-prepared children arrive in good time, it’s easy to have a laughter-filled early morning experience.

2 A domestic couple helps you have spontaneous fun

The weather’s gorgeous? Ask your cook for a picnic and your chauffeur can drive you out to a little-known beauty spot to enjoy the sun. Unexpected guests? Your housekeeper will be ready to welcome them with beautifully appointed bedrooms and perfectly equipped common spaces, while your cook or chef will readily adjust menus to accommodate the surprise visitors and their dietary needs. All that’s left for you to do is enjoy their company.

3 A domestic couple can intensify your pleasure in your home

Tiny details make all the difference. Those who have a domestic live-in couple know the joy of finding your butler has arranged a display of garden flowers on the dinner table, the delight of wandering round your gardener’s well-kept green space, the thrill of hearing your child practising piano or violin under the supervision of a governess … all these are pleasures that are intensified by the presence of experienced domestic employees.

4 A domestic couple gives you the joy of certainty

When we get home late, or we have to solve a complex problem, when we’re under the weather or stressed by personal issues, family life can just be hard work. None of us are immune from difficult times, but a domestic couple can give you absolute confidence that your household will run like clockwork and your family well be well cared for. This means that even in the toughest times, you can find moments of happiness and satisfaction in your domestic life, which definitely help when dealing with life’s less pleasant moments.

Ready to find the perfect domestic couple for your family?

The final part of the fun equation is ours – we make it a real pleasure to find and hire the ideal domestic employees for your household. You may never have thought of working with a domestic staffing agency as fun, but Mrs Hunt’s Staffing exists to change your

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Anybody who has domestic staff knows they are invaluable. The benefits they bring don’t just simplify your life, they bring pleasures that cannot be overstated such as:

1. Guaranteeing the quality of important tasks – whether it’s the nanny who drops your children at school, the cook who caters to you dietary needs or the chauffeur who gets you from A to B by avoiding that day’s traffic jams and roadworks, your domestic employees give time care and attention to crucial activities so you can get on with your day, confident everything is under control.
2. Expertise on tap – because live-in staff are on hand during working hours, you can always get some expert input into a matter, whether it’s the children’s homework, whether to plant a prairie border or how to integrate statistics into a report.
3. Boost your leisure time – excellent social lives require a certain amount of preparation, so having a housekeeper to ensure bedrooms are tip top, a butler to oversee your guests’ every need and a chef with the capacity to wow your guests with amazing dishes, you’re bound to find that entertaining becomes easy.
4. For those with more than one home, domestic staff ensure that every residence is kept clean, safe and welcoming and allow you to move from place to place without stress.

It all sounds rather obvious, doesn’t it? Whether you are about to employ your first domestic or a seasoned user of domestic staff, the benefits are very clear.

Domestic staff give you more time to enjoy life

What it all boils down to is that our clients find they have more time and energy to devote to the things that really matter to them, whether that’s growing their business, fulfilling a sporting ambition, spending time with their families or simply relaxing. With the right staff in place, it just feels as if you’re getting 25 hours out of every 24 hour day!

But Mrs Hunt’s Staffing also knows that finding the calibre of domestic staff that bring all these advantages isn’t that straightforward. It can take time to find the right employees, and it may be stressful to undertake that search. We aim to be your partners in finding the candidates who will give you the peace of mind you deserve.

A domestic staff agency can help you find the right staff by:

• Helping you define the criteria for the perfect domestic employee
• Sifting applicants, conducting background checks and comparing candidates with the job spec
• Assisting with interview arrangements and suggesting questions that will help identify the best of the shortlisted candidates.

At Mrs Hunt’s Staffing we also insist on the highest calibre of both training and expertise – we are the longest-established and most rigorous of the UK domestic staffing agencies and we offer candidates whose pedigree is first class. The high standard of our staff doesn’t just provide piece of mind today – it provides better staff retention and which means our clients keep their employees for longer and find it easier to recruit new staff when current ones have to leave.

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 It’s what everybody wants, a Mrs Hudson for household management, a Jeeves manservant, Parker to drive your car … well maybe not, puppets aren’t necessarily the best drivers! But, moving away from the world of fiction, professional domestic staff are often seen as difficult to locate. That genuinely isn’t our experience at Mrs Hunt’s Staffing. For over a century we’ve been finding exactly the right household staff for our clients, and we’ve learned a few specialist techniques along the way that we’re finally willing to share.

 1. Have a household manual

 Did you know that the famous Mrs Beeton’s Cookery Book is actually only 50% cookery? The rest is household management: how to clean and service a house, how to manage servants, what to do when things go wrong etc. Today you might keep your household manual as a computer programme, but we still believe it’s a fantastic idea, not least because when you need to recruit a new member of the team, the manual will already outline their duties, where they fit into your household staff, and what key skills and experience they need to have. If this sounds daunting, don’t worry – we can advise on how to create such a manual and even hire you a temporary staff member to create it.

2. Plan your interviews

If you already have a household manager, then you may not be involved in the interview process, but it’s always a good idea to engage with potential staff at the earliest possible stage as they will have to fit into your household and that requires you to feel both confident and comfortable about them. We can arrange online interviews so you can get a feel for each shortlisted candidate, and we also have suggestions for interactive interview activities so that you or your household manager can experience how the candidates perform. This is a superb way to see for yourself how a new candidate will fit into your household.

3. Consider benefits

While Mrs Hunt’s Staffing can help with establishing an attractive salary package to entice the best possible domestic staff to your door, many employees can offer attractive benefits that they don’t always remember to outline. For example, several of our clients give their domestic employees holidays in properties they own overseas – this is a major benefit that employers can take for granted but which potential domestic staff really value. Being provided with good accommodation is important to highlight, as is the provision of things like a staff room. One of our clients with a large household staff has set up a gym for his domestic employees, which is very popular with his team!

4. Be yourself

People become domestic staff because they value the opportunity to be in service, to work on a personal level and to help make the lives of their employers easier. Given that this is their vocation, it’s important to be yourself when hiring new employees because the relationship will be one of great intimacy than work related employment and there’s no point pretending to be somebody you’re not. Honesty from the beginning makes it easier to establish long-term working relationships with a loyal, professional domestic staff.

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