One of the most important people that you will employ in your home is not actually service providers such as Electricians, Plumbers or even Construction companies, its your domestic worker, yet when looking at Social Media ads for domestic workers these are normally one-lines such as "cleaner needed for my house" or "do you know any good domestic workers", this is in fact a far cry from what we should be saying in these ads looking for someone that could potentially work for us for years.
You have Legal Responsibilities
Traditionally the hiring and firing of Domestic workers was seen as a straight forward affair, you employed someone and if it did not work out then you just parted your ways, this however have changed and by law any domestic worker, which includes not just your home helper/cleaner/nanny, but also includes any baby sitters, Au pairs, gardeners, that works for you for more than 26 hours per month is considered a permanently employed worker, no matter if you pay them daily, monthly, even if they have multiple jobs, any job they have that exceeds these hours per month is considered permanent employment.
This permanent employment status brings with it a set of legal responsibilities, such as having to register yourself as an employer on the Unemployment fund as an employer and having to deduct and pay UIF each month, registering the worker for Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases (COIDA) and having to pay a percentage of their annual salary each year to COIDA, failure to do any of these could land you in hot water so top speak as there are penalties as well as financial risks associated with ignoring these.
This Person Becomes Part of Family
Yet besides the above legal factors the domestic worker in most cases would form a trust and intimate relationship with your household, family members and would have access to your personal and private space, not to mention that you would be dealing with the individual on a personal and daily level, therefore it is actually incredibly important that you apply your mind to the employment process, and not just employ someone because another household said they are great, each household has its own dynamics.
Take a practical example of someone with no children, a two bedroom house with automatic washing machines and tumble dryers that requires no ironing recommending a worker that would have to work in a house with manual washing, drying and ironing, may have small children in the house and may even have different belief systems than yours in terms of raising children, albeit that they may have been perfect in the one household you may find a complete different experience in the latter household, and you may have set yourself and the worker up for some tough times ahead.
And as said before, if the relationship is not working then you have to go through very specific steps to terminate the said employment, which if not done to the letter of the law could see yourself in the unfortunate position of CCMA sessions and the frustrating experience such processes brings to bear.
Importance of Following Structured Process
It is therefore incredibly important that you structure a full job specification sheet, your specific requirements for your household, your expectations, and that you actually interview each applicant formally to make an informed decision prior to employing the worker, equally so it is important for the worker to understand if they are a fit for your household and family, especially since unhappiness at work leads to unhappiness in life in most cases, and for both parties in a non-functioning relationship this becomes an issue that is best avoided.
We therefore strongly suggest that you apply your mind to this process, and we created tools specifically for this purpose on The Go-To Guy site that you could use, they are free tools that has no monetary charge and is aimed at helping both employer and employee as far as it relates to the defining of the job as well as some of the documents, such as employment agreements, that could be used.
Some Tools to Use
We have the following pages and tools you can use for this purpose:
The Basic Domestic Job Board - This is a "Free Hand" and open forum space where you can write your ad in your own structure and words, which then appears for potential workers to view and apply. The system allows you to add either your contact details or requesting potential employees to respond to the add in the comments section, thus you can ask and engage with potential employees directly on the open forum prior to contacting them, should you not wish to provide contact details initially. You can access that page by clicking here.