Chadwick Village Staffing provides ‘exclusive estate staffing’ for a wide variety of needs

By Catherine Kolonko

Finding a chef who can meet a family’s dietary needs or prepare fine cuisine for a special social event is one of many services offered by Chadwick Village Staffing, located in Rancho Santa Fe.

“We have staffed over the years just about every large, important estate throughout Rancho Santa Fe and most of North County,” said Kevin Bass, who owns the home staffing agency that has served the community since 1962.

The longstanding presence in the community means that much of the generated business is from repeat clients or word of mouth. The company typically handles 20 to 25 job orders at any given time.

“We place housekeepers, estate managers, chefs, personal assistants, domestic couples, housemen, butlers, cooks, drivers, nannies, and we also have a home care division where we do private duty homecare,” Bass said.

Bass and his business partners purchased Chadwick about a decade ago and also operate similar businesses in Palm Springs and elsewhere in Southern California. That allows them to cross referral if ever there is difficulty finding just the right person for the job in any given community, he said.

“We do everything from part-time to full-time to live-in to live-out, just depending on what the family and the household needs are,” Bass said.

Housekeeper is the one position that most people continue to request even during economic slumps, said Bass. Personal assistants, cooks, nannies and drivers are also in demand.

“We can do everything from the kitchen to the laundry to the household needs to the drivers, including nannies if there are children involved,” Bass said.

Because Chadwick is a placement referral agency, it can conduct extensive background checks on potential candidates to get an idea of their personalities and abilities, which helps determine if they will work well in a particular home. The company also thoroughly reviews the needs of each client.

“We take a really good amount of time to try to match the right personalities,” Bass said.

That involves gleaning important information from clients about individual and family needs and lifestyle. Whether the home is formal or informal or both parents work outside the home can make a difference when identifying the right person or people for a job.

“If somebody calls up and says I need a housekeeper five days a week, that’s easy for us,” Bass said. “What sets us apart from any other agency is that we dive much deeper.

“We do all of our due diligence. We check their references we check their background we go through an extensive interview process once they are in our system. When Mrs. Smith calls and asks for a housekeeper that speaks Dutch and is between 30 and 40 years old and can do a little bit of cooking, then we find that right person for Mrs. Smith.”

The company welcomes challenging assignments with the confidence of an experienced business and staff. Bass recalled working with one client who requested a Spanish-speaking chef, nanny and two kitchen workers. She needed to fly them from California to Spain to open a restaurant there, work there for six months and then return to California.

“There were multiple staff members and we were able to staff it and she is very pleased,” Bass said.

Chadwick charges a fee based on a sliding scale depending on job descriptions and the salary of the person being hired, said Bass, typically 100 to 150 percent of a month’s salary. The fee schedule for short-term placement is slightly higher.

Bass oversees the operations at Chadwick while Kathryn Anderson coordinates the contacts, searches and interviews with clients and candidates. More information is available at www.domesticstaffing.com or by contacting Anderson at kathryn@domesticstaffing.com.