Each month we highlight one of our agency partners, and get to know a little more about them and their insights into the household employment industry. This month we spoke with Sue Collins, Nanny Placement Consultant for Aunt Ann’s In-House Staffing.
Agency Vitals
- Founded in 1958
- Serves the San Francisco metro and surrounding areas
- Specializes in providing full-service nanny and household staffing for homes of all sizes, with legal referenced and background checked candidates.
How did you get started?
Believe it or not, there was an Aunt Ann! She was Ann Collins, grandmother to me and my sister Denise Collins. Ann started the business in 1958 with the help of our parents, Tom and Sophie Collins. At the time there was nothing like it but there was a demand for the service. It started with just babysitters and nurses, but as the families’ needs grew and households grew, the agency added more services. Now we staff the entire San Francisco Bay Area and its surrounding Silicon Valley and wine country with executive assistants, house managers, estate managers, housekeepers, chefs, and personal assistants in addition to nannies and newborn care specialists.
What is your biggest challenge?
Working for a family business, there is no line drawn between work and life. Your work is your life, and it’s become incredibly challenging to turn off “work mode” in my mind. All our placement consultants live their placements. We take the job home with us and get to know both our families and caregivers on a personal level. This allows us to match our nannies and families on another level than just “this is the job, and this is the employer.” We often lose sleep thinking about recent or upcoming placements or dreaming about different scenarios.
What strategies do you use for recruiting candidates?
Being an established agency for 60 years, we have quite a deep database filled with quality candidates that we have followed throughout their careers. When we need additional options, we look for nannies on various social media platforms, or through targeted recruiting events. We also rely on referrals from other nannies and through our personal networks.
How do you advertise/market your agency? / How do you find new families?
You can imagine what 60 years of referrals look like – and that is our greatest marketing asset. The majority of our clientele have heard about Aunt Ann’s through another family or friend who has had a positive experience working with our agency. Family referrals are the best source of prospects for us – we’re only as good as our placements. We have won some awards that helped promote us in the area, such as Best of the Bay awards and the Gellert Family business award from the University of San Francisco. Throughout the years, we’ve been voted by San Francisco Business Times as one of the largest women-owned businesses, and Denise has been awarded as one of the top Women in Leadership. Our awards and accolades assist with our marketing quite a bit.
How do you distinguish yourself from online agencies? / How do you show your value?
This business is about relationships; building and fostering relationships and understanding people. What distinguishes Aunt Ann’s is our ability to create relationships with not just our clients, but with our candidates as well. There is a whole support team behind each placement, and we have a passion for the work we do. All the legwork that needs to be done before hiring is also what separates us from the online sites. We do interviews, we check references, and we do background screenings for all our candidates. Both the screening and relationships we build are so important to our process and families cannot get using an online site.
How do you help families and nannies understand the benefits of paying legally?
Educating ourselves is the key to helping families understand their responsibilities – we help them take the mystery out of the process. We provide all the information to them, including GTM materials, and we outline their legal obligations. Most families think that paying legally is more complicated than it is, and assume that paying off the books is easier. We share stories about the importance of being paid legally, and not just because it is the law. We make sure our nannies know that being paid on the books is for their own benefit and protection.
What changes have you seen over the years in the household employment industry?
One of the big changes we have seen over the years is the legitimation of being a nanny as a career option. People used to see nannies as just babysitters, but with the increase in nanny payroll services and the importance of background checks, being a nanny is seen much more as a feasible career choice. We’ve also seen great changes in family’s expectations – they have evolved into wanting nannies that can meet a faster-paced lifestyle. The growth in our area has often created the need for more than one employee – many households have grown into multi-staff homes.
How has GTM helped your agency and your families?
The personal connection that GTM makes with our staff has been wonderful. I know that I can refer families to an expert who will stay with them throughout the process, answering questions and providing support as needed. We need to be able to trust a referral partner, and GTM makes it easy to do so. Our families have found it simple and efficient to set up their payroll accounts.
What are some fun facts about you or your agency?
Our agency is chalk full of fun facts! As we mentioned before we are a generational business. Just recently we had a gentleman call who was looking for a nanny for his little boy. He shared with us that when he was younger, his parents hired a nanny through our agency to care for him, and he was still in contact with her. He also mentioned that we staffed his mother with a caregiver when she got older. We are generations serving generations, and we love to hear stories about how our work has impacted families.
Visit Aunt Ann’s In-House Staffing or contact them at (415) 749-3650 or [email protected].
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