Starting the New Year on the Right Foot with Your Household Help!

January is a great month to think about your life and
changes and resolutions that you feel you should be
making in the New Year!! It is also a great time to
think about your household employees and what changes
can be made so that your family is well cared for and
your house is running smoothly.

Very often employers overlook providing their
household employee review sessions to discuss problems
and ways of making improvements. If you do not
consider doing this from time to time, there may be
some things that are disappointing to you that will
never get resolved. Your employee may also have some
issues that need to be discussed but are not brought
out for fear that this may prompt you to fire them.
The intention here is to discuss openly all the issues
and make the necessary changes so that everyone is on
the right foot for 2007.

So let's begin with some questions that you can first
pose to yourself and then decide if these are relevant
to your household situation and employee(s).

*Is there a problem with your employee getting to work
on time and being reliable? Is he/she sometimes coming
late for 5 minutes on a regular basis -and is it
becoming such a habit that there no longer seems to be
a set schedule?

*Is everything getting done in the house as is
required. Are there any duties that the employee is
slacking off on? Perhaps because you have never noted
this in the past, these duties have now been entirely
eliminated.

*Is there any thing that is being done that just isn't
being done to your satisfaction? Perhaps now would be
an excellent time to break old habits and start fresh
with a new approach to completing a task.

*Is there an attitude problem that seems to never go
away? Maybe when you tell your employee how to do
something, there is a bit of resentment making it
difficult you to approach your employee. Are you
walking on egg- shells around your employee?

*Have you established what vacation time, holidays,
sick and personal days that you are willing to provide
this year? You wouldn't want anyone assuming
something that you either are not willing to provide.
You also may want to add something this year as a perk
to show your appreciation for your employee's loyalty
and good performance. Either case, these are
important issues to have established in the beginning
of the New Year.

*Are there any changes that your child is undergoing
that should be discussed with your household employee
regarding development and education for your child?
What kinds of things should your child be exposed to
this year?

*This is also a good time to go over a child's new
schedule for school and activities. Perhaps, there
will be more driving needed and more time devoted to
the children then other household activities. Or the
reverse: perhaps the children are now going to be in
school full time which would mean that there will be
more time devoted to other household chores.

*Do you have any vacations coming up that you want to
discuss with your employee where you might need your
employee to stay extra time, weekends or even go away
with you? It is always best to give as much advance
notice on these matters. You would also want to know
when your employee plans to take vacation time so that
you can incorporate this into your own schedule and
get the necessary back-up for when he/she leaves.

*Overall, is there anything that happened in the last
year that bothered you but that you elected to
overlook because you just didn't want to get into it
at the time? Why not bring up anything that might be
festering and clear the air so that 1) you feel better
about it and 2) you have made your employee aware that
this is something that you do not want repeated.

Certainly, if you dig deep, you are bound to find one
of these abovementioned issues that could be discussed
to facilitate a more positive working environment for everyone.

Putting things on paper, in an Employee/Employer
Agreement is always useful. Putting together a
Household Manual is the best way to be sure that all
your demands and everything you have discussed with
your employee is clearly stipulated so there are no
mis-communications.