When you’re considering adding staff to your home, it’s important to know what you’re looking for. And a crucial element is chemistry.

A clean house is important – it’s one thing that you can control and that is nice. Knowing your home is organized and clutter-free allows you to focus on other important things.

With my daughter Elyse starting her senior year of college, my thoughts are returning to the day we moved her in as a freshman. It was an exciting time for sure, filled with anticipation, expectation, anxiety and lots of lists to follow in preparation for this new adventure. Besides the travel and unpacking all of her stuff, my job was to help get her acclimated to her new surroundings and roommate so that I’d be able to leave knowing she had everything she needed for a good start.

It’s always a very difficult time when staff leave the home. While these departures are often unavoidable, it’s better to be proactive to help prevent something like this from ever occurring.

Crimmins Staffing’s sister office, Meadow Lane Private Staffing, is proud to sponsor Heart of the Hamptons’ 2nd Annual Moonlit Plunge on Tuesday, August 1st (7-10pm) at Coopers Beach in Southampton. All proceeds will benefit Heart of the Hamptons’ year-round food pantry and assistance program serving 2,000 families.

Welcome to the beginning of the dog days of summer. In the world of residential staffing, July and August can be slower months, which means it’s a great time for candidates to begin getting ready for September. Typically, September starts a new active time period and you need to prepare yourself to take advantage of this renewed activity by planting seeds and preparing accordingly.

Decades spent in private service have only reinforced my slavish devotion to checklists. They function so beautifully, on so many levels, that I must take this moment to sing their praises.

According to a recent Gallup poll, the average U.S. worker expects to work until they are at least 66 years old.  For round number sake that means most workers will work for 40 years. Using an average of 2,000 work hours per year, people will average 80,000 hours of work in a lifetime.

It seems reasonable to infer that by doing your craft well, by working well, you’ll earn the respect of other workers and the right to be heard. Work with all our heart. Be a good worker. And give it your best even when the boss isn’t watching.

As the calendar hits May and we march towards Memorial Day and the unofficial start of summer, thoughts are beginning to turn to long weekends or extended stays in places like the Hamptons, Nantucket, and Saratoga Springs. What about staffing support for these long-awaited getaways?

Based on my personal experience in this industry, residential staffing has certainly evolved over the past 10 years. With the introduction of Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Craigslist, the prevalence of email, and the launch of many new, more automated staffing agencies, I have seen a dramatic change in the way clients go about finding staff for their homes.