Taking the legwork out of finding seasonal staffing

Finding domestic staffing for the busy Hamptons summer season is tricky—many homeowners want helpers they can trust to take care of their children while also managing their palatial homes.

But that’s not always an easy find, especially considering that those wealthy enough to hire professional help are often pressed for time, unable to spend hours interviewing people. That’s where the Calendar Group, run by husband-and-wife partners Steven and Nathalie Laitmon, comes in. The business caters to the niche market of busy, high-powered individuals who need staff to maintain their homes. Their business, which is located in Westport, Connecticut, has expanded out of Manhattan and to the East End in recent years. Locating Hamptons-based seasonal summer help has kept the couple busy.

“Right now we’re getting the frantic calls from personal assistants who have been sent to the Hamptons, or are still in NYC,” explained Mr. Laitmon, who was an attorney for Sony Music Group before starting his company with his wife. “Now it’s the busiest time of the year.”

Chefs and domestic couples—husband-and-wife teams that maintain a home—are the most requested help in the Hamptons, Mr. Laitmon said. He explained that the husband often serves as the groundsman and driver, and the wife will do the cooking, cleaning and child care for a family.

“Our number one is couples and chefs,” he emphasized.

Mr. Laitmon knew he had a solid business idea about seven years ago, when a friend of his, a frazzled personal assistant, was searching for a staffer for her billionaire boss.

The personal assistant told Mr. Laitmon that she put out an advertisement “for one thing, and got 40 of something else” back.

He said that he assisted his friend, and then started helping other people working for the extremely wealthy find not only domestic staffers but also high-end shopping requests, such as watches at Cellini, artwork by Pablo Picasso in Manhattan and clothing at Bergdorf Goodman’s.

“Little by little we got a client base out of LA and NYC,” Ms. Laitmon said.

And that’s how The Calendar Group was born, Mr. Laitmon reported.

Ms. Laitmon emphasized that The Calendar Group’s contacts in the domestic staffing business are top-notch. She said that she and her husband once had a client who wanted to help them search for domestic staffing. They were hesitant to let him do so—searching was the job the client had already hired them to do. But they allowed the client to search anyway, she explained.

The staffers that the client turned up were not the cream of the crop, and had built less-than-stellar reputations in the domestic staffing community, Ms. Laitmon explained.

“So many of the people he had aggregated in the industry were not of a high-quality caliber,” she said. “There’s a lot of mediocrity out there.”

The domestic staffing community is very small, insular and unorganized, Mr. Laitmon explained. Since its inception, the Calendar Group has tried to bring some method to the madness in the industry, he said.

Ms. Laitmon, who previously worked in the human resources field at corporations such as Deloitte & Touche and Ernst & Young, said that through their current work, she and her husband have developed a nationwide network of excellent staffers. They learn of new staffers mainly through word-of-mouth, and know who just looks good on paper, and who is actually trustworthy and will do a good job.

Mr. Laitmon noted that The Calendar Group has a private investigator on retainer in order to vet a staffer.

“They know the red flags,” he said.

In addition to finding professional staffers for busy people, the couple makes house calls to assess what type of domestic staff a home requires.

“It’s on the luxury consulting side,” Mr. Laitmon said. “We try to help people be efficient in their staffing, and not stack body upon body.”

In a staffing consulting project, Mr. and Ms. Laitmon will interview the head of the household, find out how they live their lives, assess their needs and then help them re-structure their staff, they explained.

“We may have to hire and fire people,” he said. “Sometimes there are two people doing the same job,” he said, adding that readers of The Southampton Press are eligible for a gratis staffing consultation.

At the end of the day, the service that The Calendar Group provides is all about adding convenience and luxury for those who need impeccably credentialed household help, according to Mr. Laitmon.

“We can get you hotel-like service in your own home,” he said. “It’s not all formal and stuffy.”