"It's like a desert," said Nicholas Ash, a third-generation Edwardian English butler affiliated with J. Danielle & Co. "The people who actually have the skills, and experience, almost are impossible to find."
Economy, war, politics suck, but what now? Domestic staffing is proving very hard to find
Sure, the economy sucks, Afghanistan drains and politics blows. However, Rancho Santa Fe has other worries, too.
There's a quality estate help shortage. What's a "VIP family" to do?
"People are very, very specific in what they are looking for," said Jamie Danielle, whose J. Danielle & Co. Domestic Staffing finds, and places, top quality help at some of the toniest estates in the nation around Rancho Santa Fe.
"It can be frustrating for them finding the right person with the right experience," Danielle continued. "Some people are looking for a French chef, for example, and they have to be French. Or a dog walker who can double as a nanny, a household assistant who can do administrative work.
"Or maybe," Danielle added with a wink, "a manny, a man working as a nanny for a family with boys."
Then, there are butlers and housemen, personal chefs and cooks, major domos and executive housekeepers, caregivers, estate managers and a list of domestic positions needing filling goes on and on and...
Rancho Santa Fe's elite -- referred to as "VIP families" by the cognoscenti -- has as many permutations of executive staff positions as Eskimo languages have words to describe snow. Other analogies also may apply.
"It's like a desert," said Nicholas Ash, a third-generation Edwardian English butler affiliated with J. Danielle & Co. "The people who actually have the skills, and experience, almost are impossible to find."
Said Eric Rimmele, managing director of Tower 23 a "luxury lifestyle hotel" on the water at Pacific Beach. "The domestic market is a very closed market.
"Families are very picky when it comes to employees," Rimmele said.
Rimmele is a consultant to Danielle's exclusive staffing service. He puts on daylong seminars at client locations providing newly engaged staff the added, and much needed, etiquette and serving techniques suitable for working inside the world of elite living.
"It can be pretty intensive because many of them have never had the fine dining experience," Rimmele continued. "Some of the staff employed by Rancho Santa Fe families have never encountered these kind of people, so I bring both worlds together, helping the employee understand what privacy means and how to provide good service without being obtrusive."
Ash, too, noted the delicacy of the situation when dealing with "principals," the upscale service industry's term for clients.
"It's a whole different world," Ash said. "Employees must realize there is a sheet of glass and you must remember you are an employee. When you're in a private home environment, you are always some form of intrusion unless you have the knowledge, and necessary skills, to be involved properly in another person's life."
Staffing and serving
That's where Danielle's agency comes into the picture.
"Jamie and I have been working together for seven or eight years," Rimmele said. "We met when she was hosting TV and radio cooking shows. When she started her business, I said 'Just call.' Her clients trust her and also trust my services."
Trust, efficiency, hard work and education all are qualities in high demand in the high end domestic staffing market, all calling cards for the youthful 35-year-old Cardiff resident who went from actress to cooking show host to personal chef and now into a one-woman staffing agency whirlwind.
"It's a struggle to find good candidates," said Anya Slocum, who staffs estates and venues for a super-wealthy, and well-known, family whose identity must remain, of course, private.
"Jamie's background is impressive," Slocum said. "She has worked for VIP families and knows what she is doing. People not only like her, but believe in her. It is hard to find someone, and definitely competitive, since every VIP family wants to have the best. Jamie is a great person, hard worker. I definitely will be calling her for years to come."
Danielle also has worked for other notable residents in southern California including restaurant owner and cookbook author Su-Mei Yu and television personality Bree Walker.
Passing the Test
The process for finding top help is straightforward, if challenging. Danielle keeps track of the candidate pool, adding potential staff applicants to her list. She screens them during initial telephone interviews, eliminating up to two-thirds due to lack of qualifications or suitable job matches.
Those passing muster come into her office for a second interview. Often, depending on the assignment, she must do full background and driver license checks, as well as check references and experiences. She helps qualified candidates in areas of need, even working with them on resumes if needed.
Through a variety of marketing methods as well as personal contacts, Danielle connects with clients seeking domestic staff. Clients come to her office or she visits their estates to get an up-close look, and feel, for their staffing needs. She also is involved in the final interview, and placement, process t the extent desired by clients.
Candidates don't pay for the service. Clients pay the rent, generally to the tune of one month's salary for each placement.
From Kitchen to serving
A native of Portland, Ore. -- family now runs the leading health food market at Bend, Ore. -- Danielle comes from a "super" theatrical background. Her dad, Lane Smith, was Perry White in the 1990s television hit "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman," and a well-known character actor who starred in David Mamet plays and as Richard Nixon in "The Final Days."
Danielle attended the University of Oregon and University of Colorado, where she studied theater. She moved to Hollywood and appeared on episodes of "Charmed" and "7th Heaven."
Hollywood was a hassle, however, and Danielle came south to San Diego where she took a passion for cooking into a career as personal chef and cooking show host. She apprenticed under the internationally recognized Chef Larry Banares and co-hosted his Time Warner Cable cooking show.
Danielle also went across the nation demonstrating and appearing on behalf of Del Mar's Milton's Restaurant bread and stuffing. She has worked as a staffing consultant in the Far East for prominent hotel corporations.
Danielle gained some culinary recognition of her own. She assisted Westgate Hotel's executive chef Fabrice Hardel at the James Beard House in New York city. For about a year and a half, she was personal chef to the family of Steve Francis, a former San Diego mayoral candidate and executive chairman of AMN Healthcare.
Cooking became a calling, as Danielle even had one of her sandwiches -- peanut butter and sriracha toasted with apples, bacon and turkey -- featured in the Costco Cookbook. She became a member of Les Dames d'Escoffier, a culinary leadership group for top women in the field.
And now, this is it
All this led Danielle to the present. "I had gone through the other agencies in town looking for jobs as personal chef and developed an interest in placing chefs," she said.
"Once I started up this agency, I found there was so much of a need for nannies and housekeepers that foe every one chef that was placed, there was a need for 10 housekeepers."
Danielle started the company in 2006 as a home-based business. She incorporated and got the required state business license, some $2 million in basic business insurance to cover liability and devoted sweat-equity to getting the business rolling.
As business boomed, Danielle moved out of her home into a small office, first at Rancho Santa Fe Village and then to Cardiff. Her small office features comfortable furniture and position matching post-it notes.
And hence, J. Danielle & Co. Staffing. For more information, visit the company's web site at http://www.estatehousekeepers.com/ , email staffing@jdanielle.com or call (760) 943-8486. The address: 2033 San Elijo #423, Cardiff Ca 92007.
