Family offices manage wealth, properties, and household operations for billionaire families across multiple locations. Their staffing needs are different from individual clients because of scale, institutional processes, and the number of properties involved.
We take the brief from the family office, search our 50,300+ vetted candidates, run the checks, and put forward two or three people for each role, with a three-month replacement guarantee on every placement.
Our co-founder Morgan Richez, who reviews this guide, has worked with single and multi-family offices, including Middle Eastern families with 25 to 40 properties.
Volume and Scope
Family offices operate at a different scale than private households.
They recruit for multiple properties, often five or six locations, and at least three or four. Morgan’s rule of thumb: a single family office manages one ultra wealthy family with at least £100 million in wealth.
Multi-family offices handle several families at once.
Single family offices recruit two to five domestic staff per year. Multi-family offices can hire 10 to 20 people annually.
The Information Gap
Family office directors manage finances but don’t live with the principal. They lack the daily lifestyle details recruiters need to make successful placements.
What’s often missing:
- How formal or informal the household runs.
- Education philosophy for nannies.
- The principal’s personality traits and stress triggers.
- Whether the wife or husband makes final hiring decisions.
Morgan says this creates extra steps in the briefing process.
The solution is requesting direct contact with estate managers or household staff on-site to fill information gaps.
Standard Operating Procedures
Ultra wealthy clients require strict processes. Family offices send detailed documentation to agencies they work with.
What these documents typically include:
- Interview stage breakdowns showing who meets candidates and when.
- NDA requirements.
- Candidate vetting procedures.
- Background check standards.
- Reporting structures.
- Document submission timelines.
Morgan has seen family offices send 20-page documents outlining every step of the hiring process. Agencies must follow these exactly to maintain the partnership. Our family office page covers the office roles themselves.
Why a Global Footprint Matters
Families with properties in London, Monaco, New York, and Dubai need one point of contact.
Benefits of working with an international agency:
- No juggling multiple agencies. One relationship covers all locations.
- Consistent quality standards. Same vetting process across properties.
- Better continuity. The agency understands the full household ecosystem.
Clients want the simplicity of calling one recruiter who already knows their standards, their preferences, and their household culture.
Advantages of Working with a Luxury Staffing Specialist
Access to a Deeper Talent Pool
Agencies with offices in wealth hubs source locally. A London-only agency struggles to find a butler in Monaco. Morgan & Mallet recruits where candidates already live and work.
Market Intelligence and Salary Guidance
Morgan finds that families often have outdated salary expectations. In London, for example, a housekeeper now needs at least £20 to £25 an hour.
Real-time benchmarking prevents family offices from losing candidates over outdated offers.
Filtering and Time Savings
Posting a job yourself can generate around 200 applications. Morgan & Mallet reduces that to two or three qualified candidates. Our recruiters handle the screening, reference checks, and preliminary interviews so family offices don’t have to.
Legal Expertise Across Jurisdictions
Labor laws differ significantly. In New York, domestic workers get overtime after 40 hours a week (44 if they live in), a weekly day of rest and paid days off under the Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights.
In Morgan’s experience, French employment law is far more rigid than the UK’s. Dubai and Abu Dhabi have different visa and sponsorship rules.
Morgan & Mallet works with legal advisers in the countries we recruit in to help ensure contracts are compliant. This matters when you’re employing domestic staff across multiple countries.
Asking the Questions Clients Forget
A good recruiter will identify gaps in the job brief that prevent turnover. Why do staff leave after six months? What’s missing from the role? Is the salary competitive? Does the contract match the actual working hours?
Morgan finds that many failed placements go back to an incomplete brief. We help family offices solve problems they didn’t know existed.
Payroll as a Risk Management Tool
Many principals would rather not be the employer themselves, so some family offices ask agencies to do the payroll as well as recruitment.
What it can offer:
- Employer of record. The agency can be the employer instead of the principal.
- Privacy shield. High-profile clients maintain distance from staff.
- Cross-border handling. One agency manages multiple jurisdictions.
Cross-border payroll requires legal expertise in each jurisdiction. Morgan & Mallet can do payroll in the US, the UK and France, and arranges visas and payroll in Dubai through a licensed partner.
Common Mistakes Family Offices Make
Mistake One: Being Too Rigid on Salary
Morgan has seen principals lose good candidates because of a small difference in pay:
“Sometime[s] they say, ‘Oh no, we don’t want to spend 200 pound[s] more than this.’ I said, ‘Okay, I understand, but… we’re talking about your children.’”
Better to pay more for the right nanny than save money and create turnover. The cost of rehiring and retraining far exceeds a modest salary increase.
Mistake Two: Not Preparing for the First Call
Ultra wealthy clients travel constantly. They don’t have time for multiple briefing calls. Prepare thoroughly and get it right first time.
Mistake Three: Treating All Roles the Same
Housekeepers need clear hours, typically 40 per week. Estate managers need flexible contracts with on-call availability and variable hours. Treating them identically creates legal and operational problems down the line.
What Family Offices Expect from Agencies
Monthly reporting for payroll clients:
- Overtime hours worked.
- Sick days taken.
- Holiday requests.
- Staff expenses requiring reimbursement.
- Any performance issues.
Throughout the recruitment process:
- Transparency and honesty about candidate availability.
- Staff who fit existing team structures.
- Questions the family office didn’t think to ask.
- Salary benchmarking and market intelligence.
- Clear communication at every stage.
Morgan puts honesty, trust and transparency before almost anything else. Family offices want to know where a search really stands.
How Partnerships Develop Over Time
Family offices rarely commit to an agency immediately. They test the relationship with a single hire first. If that placement succeeds, they expand gradually.
Discretion and NDAs
Morgan estimates the agency has signed between 20 and 40 NDAs since it started. Candidates often don’t know the principal’s identity until final interview stages.
Some household staff never meet the principal at all because properties are maintained but rarely visited.
This level of discretion protects high-profile clients and maintains the principal’s privacy across multiple properties and jurisdictions.
Morgan has seen some celebrity clients bring their own staff when visiting secondary homes. The permanent staff maintain the property but never interact with the family. This reduces risk and protects privacy.
Why Specialization Matters
Family offices need agencies with international reach, payroll capabilities, legal knowledge across jurisdictions, and institutional processes.
Generic recruitment agencies lack the household-specific expertise required. Hotel staffing operates differently from private homes. Corporate HR doesn’t understand live-in arrangements or the nuances of estate management.
Morgan & Mallet specializes in private household staffing. Our recruiters understand labor laws specific to household employees, which differ from standard employment law in the UK, US, and France.
For family offices managing multiple properties and dozens of staff, this specialization is the difference between smooth operations and constant turnover.
Ready to discuss your family office staffing needs? Contact Morgan & Mallet’s team for a consultation.
