The difference between a contractor and an employee is defined. Check the IRS for their definition; also conceivably your state’s employment people may have a variation.
I’m too lazy tonight to check it, but one thing is: contractor selects their own hours (subject to agreement) and is paid by the job, employee’s hours are set by you and paid by the hour. Employer handles employee’s withholding (IRS, state unemployment, state disability…), you write a contractor one check and after that it’s between the contractor and the IRS, state, etc. Contractor is likely to provide the tools; employer provides employee’s tools.
Yeah, but that all applies to employer-employee relationships. Domestic help is the purchase of a service. When you have a cleaning crew come in, you as the habitant of the home aren’t providing employment and you’re not someone that normally would have employees. I’m making the distinction here for the sake of the OP who’s looking for domestic help, i.e., a service to be provided by a company (single person may be the company). This is opposed to the people who’ve mentioned businesses, which have a reasonable expectation to employ people and thus make damned sure they’re not mixing independent contractors with bona fide employees with agency employees (third category here).
I think you underestimate the IRS. In some case they are going to say, “wait, that’s not a ‘service’. That’s an employee. Now pay us all of the back payroll taxes you owe us.” In other cases they’re going to use the data to find the myriad tax cheats out there that take in income but don’t pay taxes, figuring there is no way the IRS will ever catch them. Which way they go on this may be tipped by who has the deeper pockets.
I’m going to come out here in favour of an organization with overhead, bonded and insured employees, and a dispatch office. I’ve had cleaners come in every second week for about seven years. During that time I’ve had two different independents (who, granted, were considerably cheaper) and Molly Maid. I’ve had Molly Maid for the last five years. Occasionally the expense bothers me, but divorce would be much more expensive, I’m sure, and having a cleaning service eliminates 95% of the bickering about our vastly different ideas when it comes to cleanliness.
I digress. Sorry. I prefer the agency for a couple of reasons, which boil down to 1) speed/ease of recompense in the event of mishap, and 2) comfort in dealing with the agency vs. the individual in the event of concerns.
So, to speak to each:
I have a house with rounded everything. Not just corners, but many of the walls themselves are rounded in S-curves or Cs. And everywhere there are 3-inch high stepped baseboards, also configuring to all these curves. So to get a ding in a wall or baseboard means a considerable amount of painting must be done before an “edge” is reached where the paint can be blended in. When this happened while the Molly Maids were in, all I had to do was phone the office – they told me to get whatever painter I’d normally use, have the area fixed to my satisfaction, and to send them the bill. There was no awkwardness dealing with the individual responsible for the ding, no dickering over who would fix it or how, and everything was back to normal within the month. Similarly, when they lost my key somewhere in the snow of the front yard, I didn’t have to worry that getting the locks changed would result in a string of uncomfortable discussions and negotiations. It was simply a matter of policy. While I’m aware that many if not most independents also have insurance, I’ve heard enough bitter complaints about the out-of-pocket costs associated that I’d be quite uncomfortable making a claim. So I don’t mind paying for that level of peace of mind.
Periodically I’ve come home to find stuff like all the lights left on, a plant toppled over in the course of the cleaning, or the mud room mat rolled up and out of the way while the floor was being washed, and not returned to its normal spot so the only way I could get in the door was to leave a trail of muck from the garage (a constant here in spring). Instead of having to try and reach the cleaning team personally, I can just leave an after-hours message at the office, and usually a note will be left for me indicating that the cleaning team did receive the message. Since I am pretty hot-tempered, especially when I’m just home from work, this also means that I’m not going to be blowing up at anyone who’s going to be coming back to my home two weeks later. I don’t mind paying for that level of peace of mind, either.
And as for leaving gratuities: for God’s sake, don’t try to pawn off some piece of crap you don’t want regardless of whether you’ve hired an independent or an agency. Cleaning is not a fabulously paid occupation however you look at it, and cash with a grateful note is always welcome at the holidays. Other times of the year, well, if it’s hot in the house, wouldn’t YOU like an open invitation to have at one of those ten-ounce glass bottles of Coke while spending a couple of hours cleaning the tile? Sure you would.
Bi-weekly maid/clean-up crew user for the last 20 years, weighing in;
I’ve used both commerical (Merry Maids and others) and private individuals. I have always gotten better service from the private individuals (except once ). The commercial firms will do the same thing over and over, but are unable to vary the cleaning program. Yeah, they wipe down the counters, clean the toilets and tubs, sweep the floors etc. But they never seemed to do the baseboards and wouldn’t even think of doing the slider windows. In addition, all but one of the private individuals (see above) seem to be able to recognize when more attention needs to be paid to one area vs another during a given week. They have all (but the one) been able to make “executive decisions” about what is necessary during any given cleaning. Commercial services never make that leap, and probably don’t have the authority to do it if they wanted to.
All but the one unsat. private individual I found by word of mouth. That person was hired based on a flyer.
The commercial sevices are great if you want A, B, and C done every week. But are a pain if you sometimes want them to do D this week instead of C.
Gratuities: I give twice the bi-weekly cleaning fee at Christmas.
Oh, and I pay the private individuals what I think is market price for commercial services. The women who clean for me now suggested a price that I felt was less than adequate. I pay them 50% more than they requested. They do a really good job.
). The commercial firms will do the same thing over and over, but are unable to vary the cleaning program. Yeah, they wipe down the counters, clean the toilets and tubs, sweep the floors etc. But they never seemed to do the baseboards and wouldn’t even think of doing the slider windows. In addition, all but one of the private individuals (see above) seem to be able to recognize when more attention needs to be paid to one area vs another during a given week. They have all (but the one) been able to make “executive decisions” about what is necessary during any given cleaning. Commercial services never make that leap, and probably don’t have the authority to do it if they wanted to.
