Employee Retention in Household Staffing

Feb 10, 2025 | Family Office, GTM Blog, Household Payroll & Taxes

happy-household-staff

Family offices, responsible for managing the wealth and family goals of ultra-high-net-worth individuals, depend on the expertise, continuity, and dedication of the family’s staff to ensure the household, properties, and assets are maintained to the highest levels. These employees can include nannies, housekeepers, estate managers, chefs, chauffeurs, pilots, and others who work for a family. They may be on the household or family office payroll.

Let’s explore why employee retention is crucial for a family offices and household’s long-term success and how having the proper strategies in place helps achieve that goal.

Why Employee Retention is Important for Households and Family Offices

A key factor to success is preserving institutional knowledge. To do this, it’s key for the family to hire staff that will be with them for many years. Long-term staff will come to understand the complexities of the household and its properties to keep it running smoothly without disruption. High turnover means much of this knowledge will be lost in the transition and could significantly reduce the productivity of the household staff. Examples of this are the specific child and/or senior care, upkeep or family heirlooms, scheduling requirements for the family, and beneficial relationships with regular household vendors.

Family offices are often created with the goal of preserving generational wealth. They are involved in significant investments, and many family offices and households prefer to stay out of the spotlight. To achieve this level of privacy, it’s important the staff that is hired maintains the highest level of confidentiality – never divulging family secrets or the inner workings of the household.

High turnover can lead to a breach of proprietary information, leading to major consequences. Trust, privacy, and discretion are important traits needed with a household staff.

Finding the Right Household Staff, and Keeping Them

A strong culture is crucial for retaining household staff employees. Some ways of doing this are offering opportunities for career growth through pay and responsibility as well as providing paid vacation and sick leave.

Part of instilling a strong culture involves setting clear expectations from the start. Vague or unclear guidelines can lead to resentment between employer and employee. Therefore, fostering an environment where staff feel comfortable asking questions is essential. A comprehensive employee handbook, tailored specifically to the household and your family office, ensures all employees understand the established standards.

Employees need to know they are a valued member of the team. One way to do this is by providing robust benefits in addition to competitive pay. Some examples are providing health insurance, flexible spending accounts (FSA), health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs), and a retirement plan.

How GTM Can Help

GTM Payroll & HR offers a comprehensive employment solution for high-net-worth families and their family offices.
We’ll process payroll, manage employment tax filings, assist in the onboarding of employees, build an employee handbook, craft a benefits package, advise on required workplace insurance coverage, and much more.

Our unique Family Office Administrative Service Offering (ASO) integrates payroll, taxes, employee benefits, compliance, and workplace insurance into one easy-to-manage solution.

We can help you achieve the goal of finding and retaining long-term employees. Call (800) 929-9213 or schedule a complimentary, no-obligation consultation with a household employment expert.