In a corporate world of business, managing few employees would already take too much time and focus particularly when it comes to their finances, performances and well-being. Managing a lot more than you can handle would need the assistance of a supervisor or simply a head person to help you look after all aspects of the company including the welfare of your employees. This is the same with a family who lives in a fully staffed household. The butler who serves as the family’s head person performs all the necessary household management duties to keep everything in place. For example, a family who employs two or more housekeepers, nannies, a driver and other staff would need someone to administer all their workers’ needs and organise their tasks. The presence of a butler would take the weight off of the family, minimizing their responsibility and giving them more time for work and their children.
A butler is especially perfect for families who would like to frequently travel and spend extra time with recreation, leaving their house in the hand of someone they trust and count on. The butler’s task depends mainly on the size of the family’s property and household members. Some may need a butler on a part-time basis, but more often, families found butler services constant and massive help.
Whilst a housekeeper has specific jobs such as cleaning the household, ironing, laundry, dishwashing, changing the bedsheets and basically keeping everything neat and in order, a butler has more variable and wide duties. A butler takes care of the household bills, checks and buys stocks for kitchen and home needs, helps with arranging the family’s social gatherings, books flights and medical appointments, and tends the home security if possible. A butler oversees important matters in the household, making sure that the family lives in comfort.
More specifically, a butler does the maintenance of every part of the house. The butler ensures that the staff is doing their work, that the house is spotless and systematic, that all appliances and house apparatus are working properly, and that the security system is activated (if the family has one).
What are the qualities of a good Butler?
With all the responsibilities at hand, a butler is expected to have strong organisational and management skills and that he’s capable of multi-tasking and following simple or complex instructions. A butler must also possess important qualities like calm, child-friendly, career-driven, hardworking, polite with the ability to accept feedback. If in case, the butler lives with a family who’d like to arrange parties at home, he must be courteous and observe proper gestures since he will most likely greet guests. Strong communication skills are also necessary.
Among other things, experience in this field is the topmost requirement for this position. Some families might be willing to let the butler start from scratch but formal training could be a huge advantage. Furthermore, appearance could also be considered in this position. This means that someone with a smart and well-presented look would be ideal.
Where can you find a Butler?
Initially, agencies provide lists of experienced Butlers since they have the means to reach more clients or families. So it would be easier to use an agency to find a Butler who could give the services you need.
Little Ones is a leading international childcare and domestic housekeeper provider, including butlers or house managers and other staff, that assists families who need a hand with everything in their household. We have been providing competent services for over 15 successful years all over the United Kingdom as well as places in Europe, Russia, Middle East and beyond.
Our company is composed of professional recruitment consultants that sources staff in the most extensive ways. What we do first and foremost is to get the necessary requirements from our client, their preferences and qualifications, and hand them a set of candidates that would match their criteria. As we want to ensure our client’s safety, part of our screening process is to request for documents that would prove the applicant’s legal ability to work. This may include a police check or Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check which is a legal requirement for all individuals that discloses their criminal record to prevent unsuitable people to work for families especially the ones with children.
Little Ones is your best option when hiring a butler. Aside from the company’s good reputation on the vetting and selection process, our consultants practice cultural awareness, safety and security procedures as well as discretion and confidentiality. We have been receiving feedback from happy clients who found their nanny/housekeeper and butlers compatible with them. We believe that a harmonious relationship between the family and their staff is essential so we do our best to find the most suitable candidate, in this case, a butler for them.
Little Ones Butler
Our Butlers or house managers are highly skilled and trustworthy as all of them have undergone a thorough screening process. Their expertise in management comes from training and previous work experience that allows them to come across different relevant situations which could help for future use. A Butler’s role is vital to the family’s life cycle with their responsibilities in mind. Although we mostly consider our client’s requests, here is a list of the common tasks that a Butler is supposed to perform for the family:
Over-all maintenance
Supervision of household staff
Management of the family’s home or other properties
Wardrobe and clothing inventory
Care and cleaning of artwork and antiques
Administering the security of employer and other house members
Booking and scheduling or events organisation
Personal assistance
Chauffeur duties and valeting
Conservation of wine cellar
Our Butlers typically work in a full-time, live-in position. They often work around the clock but their standard work hours would be 12 hours per day, 6 days a week. The family will have to ready or provide accommodation for them, ideally their own room and a little facility where they could cook their food. The standard rate for Butlers assigned within the United Kingdom would range from £30,000 to £70,000 annually, and the rate for International full-time live-in Butlers where they could oversee more family properties and staff members would be up to £150,000 per year.
How can you Hire a butler?
Little Ones offers the most convenient way to find the perfect Butler of your preference. What the family could do is call our agency and briefly inform all your requirements which could be certain languages that the Butler could speak, the candidate’s ability to drive, the documents or qualifications that the Butler holds, etc.
The Little Ones consultants do all the initial screening of all applications that we receive. They conduct a one-on-one interview with the candidate which could last more or less 40 minutes. The interview will cover Butler's employment history and records and some personal information like the candidate’s view about the role and why he has chosen this field of work. Our consultants will then proceed to verbal reference checks followed by an intensive reference process. Upon completing this process and passing through the interview, the Butler will then be ready to have a face-to-face meeting with the family wherein more questions could be answered and arrangements on the working hours could be settled.
With the Little Ones excellence and commitment, the team pride themselves on being able to delicately align a premium, luxury service to those who put their trust in them. Would you like to talk to one of our expert consultants? You can call us on 0207 183 0309 or send us an email to c.sousa@littleoneslondon.co.uk
