There is a practice that runs through high-net-worth social circles with enough regularity that most families in those circles have either done it, had it done to them, or watched it happen to someone they know. A friend mentions how exceptional her private chef is. Another family sees an estate manager in action at a dinner party and wants to know if she’s happy in her position. A house manager who has been with a family for several years gets a direct approach from a neighbor who’s been impressed by the way their household runs.
The word “poaching” sounds harsh, and most of the families who do this don’t think of it that way. They think of it as recruiting, or as making an opportunity available to someone who might want to hear about it. The person is free to say no. Nobody’s being forced into anything. If the estate manager in question is happy and well-compensated and doesn’t want to leave, she’ll say so and that’s the end of it.
That framing is not wrong, exactly. It’s also not the complete picture, and the parts it leaves out are worth naming – both because they affect the professional culture of private service in ways that matter, and because families who’ve had their staff recruited away by a neighbor understand viscerally that the “they’re free to say no” logic doesn’t quite capture what the experience is like from the side that loses the person.
What Makes It Different From Normal Recruiting
In most professional contexts, recruiting is a neutral market activity. Companies approach talented people with opportunities, talented people evaluate those opportunities and decide whether to pursue them, and the movement of skilled professionals through a market is how the market functions. Private service staffing agencies, including Seaside Staffing Company, are in the business of connecting qualified candidates with appropriate positions, and that activity is legitimate and valuable.
What makes direct approaches within a social network different is the relational layer. When a family approaches another family’s estate manager directly, they’re using a social connection – the proximity that comes from shared social circles, neighborhood relationships, or mutual friends – to access a professional who is currently employed and not on the market. The estate manager is not seeking a new position. She’s managing a household, present at a social event in her professional capacity, and being approached by someone who has leveraged the intimacy of that context to open a professional conversation.
The estate manager who receives that approach is now navigating something delicate. She’s interested, or she’s not, but either way she’s in a position that she didn’t create and that has implications for her current employment. If she says yes and moves to the new household, her current employer finds out how it happened. If she says no but mentions the approach to her current employer, the social dynamics between the two families may shift in ways that affect her working environment. If she says nothing and continues in her role, she’s carrying knowledge of an approach that was made across a relationship her employer thought was straightforward.
What It Costs the Industry
Private service professionals who work in social environments where direct poaching is common describe a specific professional anxiety that comes with it. They’re cautious about being visible in contexts where their employers’ social contacts are present, because visibility has led to approaches they didn’t invite and complications they didn’t want. They’re careful about how much they communicate about their professional capabilities, because demonstrating excellence in the wrong context has preceded disruptive conversations they weren’t looking to have.
This dynamic – where being good at your job in a visible way becomes a professional liability rather than an asset – is a real cost that the industry absorbs in ways that don’t get examined. It affects how private service professionals comport themselves in social contexts, how they describe their work, and how openly they engage with the networks that would otherwise be natural sources of professional connection and community.
For the families whose staff get recruited away, the cost is the obvious one – the loss of someone they’ve invested in, built a relationship with, and depended on, plus the search and transition costs of finding and settling a replacement. For the industry, the broader cost is a trust deficit in working relationships that develops when professionals feel that excellence invites approaches they haven’t consented to.
What Reasonable Norms Look Like
The practice of families recruiting staff from within their social networks isn’t going away, and advocating for it to disappear entirely is probably not realistic. What is realistic is a set of professional norms that most participants in the private service world would recognize as fair.
If a family is genuinely interested in a private service professional who is currently employed, the appropriate path is through a staffing agency – either by identifying that they’re looking for a specific profile and letting the agency find appropriate candidates through proper channels, or by expressing general interest and allowing the professional, if they’re open to being approached, to engage on their own terms through a professional intermediary. This approach respects the current employment relationship, gives the professional control over whether and how they engage with outside interest, and doesn’t create the relational complications that direct approaches within shared social networks produce.
At Seaside Staffing Company, we hear from both sides of this fairly regularly – from families who’ve had valued staff recruited away through direct social network approaches, and from staff who’ve been put in uncomfortable positions by those approaches. The situation isn’t complicated ethically once you look at it from the perspective of everyone involved rather than just the family doing the recruiting. The professional who isn’t seeking a new position deserves to have that respected, even in a social context, and the family whose trust and investment has built the relationship deserves better than having it disrupted through the networks they share.
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