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A Decade in Review – by Guy Maddalone
Happy New Year! With 2020 underway, let’s look back at the past decade to how much has changed for both GTM and the household employment industry.
Household Employment Industry
Employee Rights and Protections
It’s hard to believe that at the start of 2010, there were no state laws that specifically addressed rights and protections for household employees. But during 2010, New York became the first state to pass a Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights, guaranteeing protections for nannies and other employees. Since then, Hawaii, California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Illinois, Oregon, and Nevada have all passed similar legislation. Recently, Seattle and Philadelphia became the first cities to enact domestic worker rights laws. And in 2019, the National Domestic Workers Bill of Rights Act was introduced in Congress. It is the first-ever national legislation that would ensure the rights and protections of millions of household employees throughout the country.
Several cities and states have also passed paid leave laws this decade. Many of these new paid sick and family leave laws, such as those in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Washington state, and the District of Columbia, include employers who may have a single worker like a family with a nanny, housekeeper or senior caregiver.
And just last month, a court ruling in Massachusetts means au pairs are covered by the state’s Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights, requiring families to pay minimum wage and overtime, maintain timesheets and obtain workers’ compensation among other obligations. This could be a trend we see expanding during this decade.
Online Job Sites
One of the most prevalent trends surrounding the hiring of nannies and other caregivers is the use of online job sites like Care.com. These sites have tried to barge their way into your families’ periphery, offering lower rates and quicker access to applicants. Families who are trying to save on costs by hiring on their own are using available online resources for assistance. To combat this, agencies have had to work harder to demonstrate their value to prospective families. Time savings, candidate screenings, expert assistance, backup care, and ongoing support are just some of the ways agencies are positioning their value over online sites.
In March of 2019, an investigation by the Wall Street Journal on the vetting and screening of caregivers on Care.com found “in about nine instances over the past six years, caregivers in the U.S. who had police records were listed on Care.com and later were accused of committing crimes while caring for customers’ children or elderly relatives.” Alleged crimes included theft, child abuse, sexual assault, and murder. This investigation has helped shed light on the risks for families hiring through an online job site instead of using an agency.
Growing Senior Care Market
The past decade has seen a significant growth in the elderly population. According to the U.S. Administration on Aging (AOA), people reaching their 65th birthday today can expect to live an additional 19 years, creating a staggering number of seniors over the age of 80 by 2026. Many seniors want to age-in-place and will need in-home care or companionship to achieve that desire. What does this mean for our industry? While you may look at childcare as the biggest market for your agency, the senior population far outnumbers the high-income families with childcare needs. With the need for in-home companion care services rising, agencies have been expanding their offerings in that area. Our affiliate agency, A New England Nanny, has seen a 30-35 percent increase in senior care services in the past few years.
Economic Growth
For the entirety of the 2010s, the U.S. economy saw continuous growth, making it the longest economic expansion in American history. This meant more people had the means to hire household help, leading to a higher demand for nannies and other domestic workers. The flip side of this trend was that unemployment rates dropped steadily, leading to a shortage of candidates for families and agencies to recruit and hire. A plus to the low unemployment rate for agencies is that families need their help to find quality candidates.
Another by-product of the low unemployment rate has been an increase in corporate backup care. More businesses are adding this as a benefit to their employees in order to recruit and retain top workers. Agencies have been able to take advantage of this by offering their caregivers to provide these services, working with a business’ HR department to promote services to the employees and become a resource for the company.
Illegal Immigration Trends
Many household employers in the U.S. hire noncitizens, largely for financial reasons, and some of these workers aren’t legally authorized to work in the country. According to Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research organization that provides information on the country’s diverse Hispanic population and its impact on the nation, by March 2010 there were 11.2 million unauthorized immigrants in the United States. Twenty-three percent of these unauthorized migrants worked in private households.
In June of 2019, the Pew Research Center reported that the number of unauthorized immigrants living in the United States had dropped to 10.4 million. The decline was due mainly to a large drop in the number of new unauthorized immigrants, especially Mexicans, coming into the country.
About two-thirds (66 percent) of unauthorized immigrant adults in 2017 had been in the U.S. more than 10 years, compared with 41 percent in 2007. With the increased attention on illegal hiring practices, it is critical that household employers follow all tax, wage, and labor laws, even if the employee is not authorized to work in the U.S.
Download our Decade in Review infographic
GTM Milestones
With so much happening in the household employment industry over the decade, it’s not surprising that GTM underwent many significant changes as well.
Household Employment Books
In 2011, I published the second edition of How to Hire a Nanny, followed in 2017 with the third edition. As this industry continues to evolve, it became necessary to update the book to keep families and employees informed of their responsibilities and relevant trends that could impact them. Due to the increased demand for in-home senior care, I published How to Hire a Caregiver for Your Senior in 2018. This book contains information specific to hiring and managing an employee to care for an elderly loved one.
Anniversaries
We celebrated three significant anniversaries during the past decade. The biggest one happened in 2016 for our 25th year in business. It was wonderful to celebrate this accomplishment with our staff, clients, partners, friends, family, and community members.
While so much has changed over the years with household employment, our relationships with nanny agencies and industry organizations has remained strong. I began my involvement with both the International Nanny Association (INA) and the Association of Premier Nanny Agencies (APNA) in the early 90’s.
In 2015, INA celebrated its 30th anniversary, and in 2018, we helped APNA commemorate their 25th anniversary at their annual conference. The partnerships and shared experiences that have come from those organizations has been crucial to GTM’s success, so it was meaningful to celebrate milestone anniversaries with those groups during the past decade.
GTM Staff
When the 2010s kicked off, GTM employed about 35 people. In 2014, we hired our 50th “GTMer,” and five years later we doubled our employee count from the decade’s start by bringing on board our 70th employee. In 2015, we opened a second office in Glens Falls, New York to meet the needs of our growing business payroll clients. To accommodate growing staff and client base, in October of 2019, we expanded our headquarters into a new building. Everything we considered for our expansion centered around creating ecstatic clients and expertise, which are part of our core values.
GTM Services
As the household employment industry evolved, we expanded our products and services to help families and their employees.
In 2010, GTM launched our personalized online tax form center for our EasyPay clients. Shortly thereafter, we began offering a Simple 401K plan for nannies and other household employees, helping families to attract and retain their best employees. In 2014, we expanded our EasyPay payroll service to accommodate families hiring in-home senior care workers.
As technology became more and more integrated with our clients’ lives, GTM upgraded our website in 2013 to make it mobile-friendly, allowing families to connect with us from anywhere. A few years later we began offering HomePunch Mobile, an online timekeeping system for families to track their employees’ hours as well as overtime, time-off requests, and accrual balances.
Offering health care benefits is a great way for families to recruit and retain their best employees, but it can seem intimidating or expensive. GTM recently began offering qualified small employer health reimbursement arrangements (QSEHRA) for our families to provide their nannies with medical coverage. QSEHRAs are specifically designed for small employers – like households – that don’t offer group health care policies to any of its employees. They also offer tax savings for families and their employees.
Last year we hired an HR advisor to help families with tasks and issues like developing an employee handbook and following the law when terminating an employee. We also launched our Household HR Concierge Service to help families retain top personnel, hire the best fits for their positions, and comply with labor laws.
As we embark on a new decade, which will be filled with even more change, remember that GTM will always be here for you and your families as a resource for everything household tax, payroll, insurance and benefits. Contact us with any questions or to request information.
