Household staff in Zürich and Geneva

Since 1987

Our first placement in Switzerland was a housekeeper for a Zürich family who spent their summers on the San Juan Islands and wanted to take her home with them in the autumn. She stayed with them for nineteen years. We have placed in Zürich every year since, and in Geneva since 2019.

Most of the households we act for in Switzerland live, at least part of the year, on both sides of the Atlantic: families with a house in Seattle or on the islands and another on the lake above Zürich or on the hill at Cologny, who like their staff to know both houses and both sets of habits. Some are Swiss households who heard of us from a friend. A few are households in Geneva who need staff with English as a first language.

Where we place

In and around Zürich: Küsnacht, Zollikon, Erlenbach and Kilchberg on the lake, the old town and the hill above it. Around Geneva: Cologny, Vandœuvres, Collonge-Bellerive and Champel. And for the season, chalets in the Bernese Oberland and the Engadin.

How Swiss placements work

Swiss law requires anyone who places staff in Switzerland for a fee to be licensed there. We place in Switzerland with a licensed placement partner in Zürich, who is party to every Swiss placement, prepares every employment agreement under Swiss law and the standard contract for household workers of the canton concerned, and invoices our fee in Swiss francs. Beatrice Ferrand runs the service from Geneva and Seattle, visits every household, and interviews every candidate.

Our Swiss fee is 25 percent of first-year gross salary, plus value added tax. The ninety-day guarantee applies as it does at home.

Roles and seasons

We place house managers, housekeepers, nannies and governesses, chefs and companions in Switzerland, permanently and for the season. Each winter a number of households open chalets for the ski season and need a house manager, a chef and a housekeeper from mid-December to late March, and some take staff from their Seattle household with them. We arrange those moves as reassignments, so that a member of staff’s placement, agreements and record with us continue unbroken.

Papers

Every member of staff who works in Switzerland must be allowed to work there. For Swiss citizens and citizens of the European Union and the European Free Trade Association that is a matter of registration. For everyone else it is a matter of a permit, which is limited in number, not quick, and not always possible. Please talk to Beatrice before you promise anyone a winter in the mountains.