The Wellington Agency Luxury Staffing

By Adam Kluger

The Wellington Agency, is America’s leading Estate & Household Staffing Agency serving most major cities across the county. April J. Berube has been in the Estate Staffing Industry since 1995. April started her first agency in Boston, Massachusetts placing highly qualified staff in households nationwide. April is known for working with high-profile/ UHNW individuals, celebrities, pro athletes, and politicians all over the USA. April and her amazing team are the best in the industry at placing Estate Managers, Butlers, Chauffeurs, Private Chefs, Executive Housekeepers, Laundresses, Domestic Assistants, Domestic

Couples, Personal Assistants, Executive Assistants, yacht Staff, Barn/Stables Managers, and even Monkey Butlers! The Wellington Agency is a licensed full-service household staffing agency with its main offices in Palm Beach & Wellington, Fl, serving all major U.S. cities. The agency is owned and operated by long-time household staffing agency owner, April Berube. It is the goal of The Wellington Agency’s owner and staff to provide clients, with the highest quality assistance in finding the right staff for their household or estate. The Wellington Agency guides you through the interview process, carefully considers your requests, and takes all your needs into consideration while they help you find the best most qualified staff from our extensive database of vetted and experienced household staffing personnel. The Wellington Agency offers the most comprehensive background checks on the candidate’s work history and experience. The Wellington Agency’s owner, April J. Berube, is a mother of three and has made major strides in the industry since the early ’90s. April understands the difficult task of finding the right person for the job and making it into a successful long-term placement, and she genuinely cares about each of her clients and wants to make the process as seamless and enjoyable for the client as possible.

April, how did you first get into staffing?

Many years ago, I was 23 years old living in los angeles with a newborn and I hired a baby nurse, this is really how I got started. (An almost bad situation turned into a passion) I hired a baby nurse through a local agency recommended by a trusted pediatrician, we ended up finding that she was giving him something to sleep and she was shaking him violently, it could have been a really serious situation --it ended up that he was fine, thank god, (but we realized after making complaints to the agency and them not taking it seriously that changes were needed. There weren’t strict enough laws or regulations at that time, so I started my company (I also was a former nanny at one time and LOVED babies) a nanny agency back in 1995 in Boston. ) I got together with a good friend, she was a nanny, and understood the interview process, as well as knew the local agencies. --we started out as just a little tiny nanny agency back in Marblehead, Massachusetts.

For many years we were placing nannies successfully but fell into a rut and needed to expand or think outside the box. We still place nannies today, more of the governess type, ROTA NANNIES/ high salary professional nannies. So, fast forward. Who doesn't want to leave cold Boston for beautiful sunny Palm Beach Florida (laugh)? I have family here. They are here for the season--and I thought why not try doing something in Florida?

So, we came out here! When I came to this area - beautiful South Florida, I ended up having a lot of successful, ultra-high net worth clients that would say," I know you are a nanny agency but can you help me with my yacht or can you help me find a private chef or someone for my private plane," and I'm like wait a minute, why just specialize in nanny placements when we can be placing 5-10 people a year, we have so much more opportunity to place other types of staff. Why focus on just nannies?

So in 2006-2007, we started the Wellington Agency which now started to focus on estate staffing. So, now I had to learn about butlers and executive housekeepers and chauffeurs and bodyguards. Being in Palm Beach, there was so much wealth, there was such need for not one or two hires but now they were looking for 10 qualified staff members, 4 housekeepers, 2 full-time chefs...bodyguards...and so it really evolved from just something very small to something that's very big. Our agency is one of the most successful and well-known in our industry. I believe it has a lot to do with having the right connection and a true understanding of what our clients want and the level of service they require without them having to say too much. WE GET IT, and We get it done! Once you work with the Wellington Agency there is a level of trust and friendship that begins. I'm not going to mention any names but I have some very ultra-high net worth, high profile clients that I have been working with for many years and they have referred people in Los Angeles and London so even though it is a small business it feels big with the amount of work we have and so it's a very interesting company in how we are getting requests for lots of private security and all that.

Do you get any unusual staffing requests?

A lot! (laugh) We've had a couple of really odd requests over the years and people will call up and say, "I know this is going to sound unique but I'm looking for a monkey butler...or a cookie butler," and I'm thinking like what is that? but we'll say, "ok give us a job description and we'll work on it," and so we were successful we got a butler for a monkey...it was basically a nanny for a monkey, whatever he needs, it was a great experience and a great client.

It wasn't Michael Jackson's Bubbles was it?

No, it wasn't Bubbles ...it was in Miami, not California (laugh), Or WAS IT??? lol

What's a cookie butler?

A cookie butler was for an infamous banker, no longer around...but he wanted somebody who was going to bring cookies at a certain time and it was kind of cool ...he would come up and just make sure that this person had what he needed.

What's your vetting process?

If someone comes to us and says, "We are looking for a private chef for a very high profile client in Los Angeles and this is what they are looking for," they'll give us the diet, the hours, how many people is it around the clock is there travel? Whatever the details may be we then start going through our database of people who we have been working with for many years -these people have worked for very high-profile celebrities over the years, this one won't be star-struck, this one has the longevity working for these families. A lot of time you have to have a thick skin and it's a lot of hours so we're just going through resumes to see who has the best fit and the background and the references have to be stellar. We have a reference department and they will call up and ask the candidates’ former employers approx.. 35 questions as to the candidate's work history, work ethic, duties and responsibilities, and reason for leaving. We are putting together a whole portfolio on that one individual, like a chef and we'll send it over to the client and say "This is Chef David he has 20 years of experience," and they'll take a look at his resume, letter of recommendation and picture of the chef and their food and then based on what we send and they will take a look and decide who they would want to do a tasting or a trial with-so they'll have them come in and prepare meals and whoever they end up picking at the end whoever they hire, they would be employing them directly as we don't employ anyone.

What territories do you cover?

Palm Beach and New York City is our biggest area, next to Los Angeles, The Hamptons are very busy over the summer months...Miami is huge right now because so many people have moved to Miami from LA and New York, Palm Beach, and the Jupiter area. A lot of our clients have homes in the Bahamas, and London so we do some recruiting in London, and Boston, where the need is in the major cities.

Any funny anecdotes?

Secrets? My lips are sealed!!! There are a lot of stories we hear on a regular basis, I let the staff vent, and those conversations stay with me. The reason we have the reputation we have is we listen, we understand, and we carefully give guidance and advice, we remind the staff that confidentiality is key, and privacy is imperative in our industry this conversation never happened. 90% of all household staff have signed numerous non-discloser agreements during their career in private service. One blab about a family not only can land you in court, but you’ll never work in this industry again. Today’s salaries are just unbelievable, what people are offering is just pretty incredible from where we were 4 or 5 years ago. Not only great pay but excellent benefits are being offered, just 10-15 years ago it was a fraction of what families are offering to their staff today. I’m so grateful to be part of that change. One client wanted to hire someone to look after the fish, some of these fish tanks are 2-3 floors for something like that we had to reach out to 2 major aquariums and I think the person we did end up finding was from the Boston aquarium.

Is being a butler a hard job?

When you have a butler it's not just answering the door it's really white glove service, very personalized, some may say not want to use the title butler and use more of a casual title – Household Manager. The roles go hand and hand unless it’s a formal household which requires training and education.

What's the secret to your success?

I'm surrounded by an amazing team, my team doesn’t just check out after the placement has been made, it’s a lot of follow-ups to make sure things are going smoothly and to reassure both parties that we are here for them for the duration of their employment. It’s also how we value both our clients and the private service provider, “the staff “- It’s important to me to have a good long-term relationship with both, not as a business transaction, but a friendship. And trust me I’ve made quite a few friends that started out as clients and now I call them friends. I think we have good relationships with everyone, if you are a housekeeper or private security or a client we just have a good relationship with everyone. We have very good reviews, all of the high-profile clients send people to us, refer people to us and we don't really have a lot of angry people. if you give people what they want to will keep coming back and they will respect you. but if one of those people fall down as a weak link sometimes the whole pyramid falls apart...but there are a lot of homes that run very well, but it all depends on the people they have working with them and how they are treated of course.

F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, "The very rich are different from you and me." Are super-wealthy people different than ordinary people in terms of their level of expectations or perfectionism? Of course, they want perfection, they expect top-notch everything and people to be perfect and so I do see that sometimes as an issue as perfection is possible. “BUT keep in mind, their expectations match the salary they are offering, so, there is a level that is expected, and if you want top dollar you better deliver!” just a real balance and we can only do the best we can but there are people that hang on to staff for 10 years --there is a difference between Palm Beach and New York. Palm Beach has a lot of turnovers --there is a lot of mediation in this area.

So you have to get personally involved?

Any do's and don'ts to staffing?

When it comes to staffing - are you only as strong as your weakest link?

That's true--if you are talking about the household...when I try to explain to people how it works, filling these household positions can be tricky, - it starts with a chief of staff or an estate manager, depending on the background and the wealth of the C.O.S, or EM, depending on how many properties there have and, or how many they have on staff, it's like a company instead of a CEO, CFO you have a chief of staff or an estate manager or it could be a butler, you have your housekeepers, a driver you have you have nannies, you have chefs and the list goes down the line, you could have 20 people running your house if you have many properties but if you have a good relationship with your staff and treat them well it goes smoothly

We do a lot of mediation here. Sometimes I feel like I am a therapist because I really want it to work out, and I want clients to understand these are people, and sometimes you need to be flexible. “ I wish I had more time on my hands, I’d do a video or write a book on how to maintain a happy household of staff” We want our client's household to run smoothly, there are pros and cons (not sure about pros and cons) and so there’s a lot of mediation that goes on for the first 3-5 months, trying to smooth out the edges because no one is perfect. Some of these homes, especially in Palm Beach, are very very large and are 40 to 70,000 square feet and they have 40-60 people on staff running their homes 24 hours a day. Some people say there is no room for error but I spend a lot of time with my clients trying to understand what we can do to make things work and if they are a family with high turnover we have to decide, do we still want to work with that household? If you can't please them then we also don't want to end up with a bad reputation --it's

I try to educate my clients so that they will have the best experience and a lot of times they will not listen and I have to just do my best. Say you have six housekeepers in your house, experienced housekeepers will know how to be in a home with a family without the family knowing you are actually there. It might sound rude to say," Do your job but don't be heard or seen," or, "Your personality, you leave it at the door," and it's because this is their home it's not an office. You are in their life every day. How many times can you walk through your living room and say, "Good morning, good morning, good morning, hi how are you?" you just want to live there. If some people take it personally then this is not the industry for you to be working in...cause it's just a job. Sometimes the employers will put their guard down and start talking with their employees and that can be a big no-no--the boundaries get really confusing and crossed and that is a huge issue and then people lose really good staff.

It seems like you really love what you do.

I absolutely love what I do! Making my clients' lives easier, and finding people great jobs that they love while making a great salary gives me great joy.