On the Couch | Stephanie Tate | Henrietta's Help At Home | McNeill Real Estate
Recently we were delighted to have Stephanie Tate of Henrietta's Help At Home, a local agency providing high quality, reliable and safe child care, aged care and a range of domestic services to private homes on the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria.
Services include:
Baby and child care - babysitters, nannies and mannies; home based after-school care
Aged Support and Aged Carers
Home Care - including domestic cleaning, home hospitality support and events staff
SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM TO WATCH THE VIDEO, or read the transcript below
McNeill Real Estate are delighted to be hosting local business owners, identities' and personalities from around the Mornington Peninsula, to share their great products, services, and events with others.
This idea to share came about when the team, Janet McNeill and David Kershaw, realised that during the course of running their own business, they were meeting so many amazing people with great stories, that they wanted to let others know what was on their doorstep.
If you would like to be involved in sharing your own story, contact Janet or David to discuss further.... we cannot wait to meet you!
Videos are uploaded every Tuesday, so make sure you subscribe to our channel here to learn all about the Mornington Peninsula, how to buy, sell or rent and meet some fascinating people!!
Janet and David
TRANSCRIPT
JANET: Hi are you looking for home care services nanny, child care services, before and after school care, garden maintenance and aged care services? Well stay tuned, because I have the person that you need to meet! It's Stephanie Tate from Henrietta's Help at Home!
JANET: Welcome to another episode of On the Couch with McNeill Real Estate. My name is Janet and today I'm absolutely delighted to introduce Stephanie Tate from Henrietta's Help at Home!
STEPHANIE: Thank you.
JANET: Welcome Stephanie. Thanks Janet.
JANET: Now Stephanie's business, is providing a range of home help services, from baby and child care, nannies, cleaning, hospitality and senior support. Thank you yes. Good excellent!
JANET: So firstly, tell us a little bit about yourself Stephanie and your background.
STEPHANIE: Yes thanks Janet. I arrived at this as sort of a full circle. My generation of women were offered teaching and nursing, I knew I couldn't do nursing. Would have been happy to be a surgeon, but you can't sort of jump in. As so many I went teaching, but knew it wasn't a long term career. I'm originally from Western Australia and so it's not hard to get involved in the mining industry. And I had the opportunity to go into the financial markets. Initially capital markets, and then share trading at the corporate level. That traveled me around Australia and working to International Companies. So I did that for a considerable time, and then when I needed to get out of those markets, having experienced things like three interstate transfers in two years accompanied with two takeovers during that and those sort of things, it is a burnout industry. Yes it's ready for change. I did it by steps. Project Management, Consulting -that sort of thing. But over time. Yes I needed to return to the human services and so while I was just finding my way I went back to doing what we all did at university and that was babysitting. Nannying, bit of hospitality work, and I was lucky enough that I joined an agency then in St Kilda. When I lived up in the in the burbs. They had a couple of divisions and over time I realized, one the potential for family services, and also by then I was ready to no longer be a city bird. I'd always lived right on top of the cities, because my lifestyle was being at work at seven in the morning till whenever. I checked out Ballarat and the Peninsula as areas with population growth, and of course the wonderful Peninsula won hands down. In particular young families often without extended family, Yes population growth - increasing retirees. So my business model taking those areas that you introduced, existed here and yes I moved down. I could only go as far as Frankston South initially where I still am. Running the business from a home office. But I service from there the full yes full through the Peninsula, yeah and yes always looking for new staff, as well as new clients.
JANET: Yep that's fantastic. And loving it. Yeah but fantastic. So obviously you've moved to the Mornington Peninsula so and I've known you for a long time now, so tell me what is it about the Mornington Peninsula that you love the most!
STEPHANIE: I hope it doesn't get too populated, Yes we're well on the way right now unfortunately. Yep I hope the planning respect will be there. Yes look I'm driving around a lot because I have a high priority on meeting clients, but I also interview staff near their home. Yes and so I'm on the road a lot. That is no hardship - beautiful scenery, yep, the the wonderful - whether it's the natural woodlands or the green lungs. Yes and I just hope that we will protect that going forward. But the diversity of population. There isn't anything you can't do or get on the Peninsula. I still had a big commitment back to the city. when I started. It was easy I've got three freeways, literally three and a highway. I could always make it to appointments up there. And it's the same on the Peninsula, you know you're using major roads all the time, well planning I love roundabouts. Yes, Having spent my last few years up in the city with level crossings! Oh gosh that was so good to get away from it, so yes I'm in love with the Peninsula. Long term.
JANET: Good and why did you decide to create Henrietta's Help at Home?
STEPHANIE: Yeah as I was saying those two and I did get the stats on the population growth, and those specific areas I could see that model I was interested in, one there was a need. At that time there wasn't another agency, because I'm an agency, offering that across the family interest. So it's not just the nuclear family. If you establish the relationship with the nuclear family, you often extend to the parents, grandparents, and once you known in the extended family. Yes. That's when the hospitality bookings can come in, for the ruby anniversaries, the weddings, because as you know we also specialise in wedding nannies, and now wedding carers for those seniors. Both those areas are very busy and always staffed by people who really know the needs of that particular client, but yes I call it cross fertilizing.
JANET: That sounds like a great description!
STEPHANIE: Yes because once we really get to know our client, there is that opportunity for either us to inform them of the other services, or they knowing it yes through the website or the facebook posting, will ask for the other services as they need them. So yes it was designed. Because at my age and in a region where I didn't know very many people, to start a business that was going to be a big challenge. I didn't want to take it to take five to ten years. I needed my business to be able to generate its own message.
JANET: Yeah I think you've done a brilliant job of that. Now obviously what what is it and you've sort of touched on it a little bit, but what is it that's unique about your business, because, you know there are a lot of people that will provide nanny services or home help services.
STEPHANIE: You know there's a lot of facilities right now that allow the aged, you know older seniors, to be able to stay at home rather than going into care, which obviously is something that I'm passionate about. Of helping them.
JANET: In my business, yes and I'm aware of, you know all these services so what is it that's kind of making you more unique than anyone else down here?
STEPHANIE: Yeah I'd like to hope that that is coming from our ethos of offering very personalised service. There's no cookie cutter for any one of those services. There's no standard nanny. There's no standard senior support. Every job is documented specifically, and so it can be a cooking nanny, or one that you and I were talking about a while ago, some of our seniors are on their own only occasionally, like I've got a couple of women who have husbands who travel for their business. One of them has got MS. So it's not just that she shouldn't be on her own in case of falls, she also can't do things like make a bed and things like that. But the companionship's very important. So in that job, yes, there's some residential cleaning going on but every every 45 minutes the staff member, and we try to make it the same one each time, that it goes and attends their stops. Has a cup of coffee, a cold drink, might take you to a local cafe, so there's an outing, there's the companionship. Yes. So every job is individual. Even with the nannies, vastly different and because it's into private homes I can't just send someone who is experienced or qualified as a nanny, to the under one-year-olds. Right as different from eight and nine-year-olds, or the teenagers, after school. So every job is tailored and matched to a staff member. It probably, anyone who's sort of doing business at a younger age than me, is probably not going to immediately identify with my next comment, but I don't want my business to get too big. Yes, because at the moment I go and meet the client. I take the staff member there to introduce them. Because often I might have up to half a dozen phone calls with a client before we start the job. Yes. I want to meet them. I want to introduce the staff member . It's a relationship. Yes, and the bigger the business gets I can't maintain that. And that's where my enjoyment is. Yes and you know the staff are equally important as the clients. And to the agency. I always say to people - unless all three are happy it's not working. So I don't want my business to get to a size where I can't keep that. Because I'm not down here profit driven. It's also a reason why I'm not corporatising. It is an agency, it's got flexibility for the staff, and it's a relation-ship based client situation.
JANET: Okay that sounds really good. So from that aspect, with your staff, you were sort of explaining to me just before that, you have staff that are sort of full-time, part-time, part-time with only a certain number of hours or that you can call upon for a particular job. If it's something that existing staff either are already booked out, or don't have the skills for. So how does that kind of work - how do you - where do you get your staff from and how does that that tie in?
STEPHANIE: Yeah that's a great question and again I do think it's the nature of Henrietta's. The majority of my staff are part-time, and that's a mutual choice. So that might mean it's women who still got children at home, there are so many single parent families, there are a lot of people who are studying, and that doesn't mean they're 18 and 19. Yes. Yes and even University of the Third Age. Because yes I have to, because people are going to private homes on their own. Which is again why the regulatory aspects are very, very important for in with my staff selection. It's not just police checks and things like that. It's the the skills add-on. The majority of my staff have got strong first aid training and these days they've got COVID certificates. Because that's a very strong interest of mine, and prevention of cross control.
JANET: That was something I was going to bring up - yeah - we've all just gone through and we're still going through COVID19. Yeah how has that affected your business?
STEPHANIE: It meant just a small upward step of a new skilling, to get that specific prevention of cross-contamination, infection control certificate. It was always in our procedures and protocols, whether it be nannying, the senior work, and often our seniors have come out of hospital. They might have had surgery or they've had pneumonia, so awareness of those things. But see from just plain residential cleaning, from the beginning, there's always been disinfecting. As different from sanitizing which can sometimes just be for nice smells. But there's been disinfecting of high touch points - bacteria points - like door handles and light switches. It's our standard service now. Apart from that my staff will and I will still retain masks long term. I'm protecting my staff. Yes and you know, we don't know what goes on in homes, but often with the client. Like the client I've come from this morning. That person's on chemotherapy. Yes. My staff must go in there with a mask on, yes, and work with gloves and things. So yes the knowledge in that area and and having that trust in the staff to be conscious. With our senior support, our duty of care is to give feedback with some of our seniors who are deteriorating. I've just recently implemented fortnightly reports too. Because you end up in that gray area of the client who originally appointed you, may not necessarily continue to be the decision maker. Yes. So we're now liaising with a family family member. And I've introduced fortnightly reports where I feel it's our duty of care. So it's not just our duty of care to the client, it's my duty of care to my staff member, that they're not left in a position where there might be a comeback - as to how did the situation happen. Because it's health related. Yes yeah so, and that again is why I'm saying it's terribly personalised. Yes and even once we've got a job, it might be evolving. Yes. And that's the satisfaction. The satisfaction for the staff. It's the satisfaction for me. yeah I do hope we can continue with this ethos.
JANET: You must have some amazing stories of how you've helped people and and it's, as you say, it's not just a cleaning job.
STEPHANIE: No it's not just a nanny job, you sort of get into the family. Yes, a little bit more and provide that extra bit of service. Yes.
JANET: So in relation to the employment - who would be an ideal staff member for you?
STEPHANIE: Probably with a degree of sadness, I've had to become a little bit skewed towards being biased towards older people. Now as it happens in the economy now, where we know return to work women and over 35's may be disadvantaged. Please come and talk to me. But I've learned by experience that, because in my past and particularly when I was doing project management and things of that nature, I used to favor giving young people a go, and in fact one of the corporate briefs I had, it was specified I had to take new graduates into quite a sophisticated project that we were doing at the time. But by experience down here and because they're in a private home, there's no colleague, there's no supervisor, things can happen. But on the other side it was an issue where sadly with young people life's experience has and either there was a bit of an issue with unreliability, when you know social life, or exams or things like that came up. But now it is that question of being able to relate to situations and carry on. Make contact with me, and again young people sadly, there's a lot of bullying in the workplace. There's they had a skill set that was - don't tell if something goes wrong - whereas older people realize, you know, more maturity about it. Yeah. You've got results. You've got to because either they need some support or they need to be protected from a situation where it could end up being litigation. So yes but there's women who've got family who want part-time work and then I've just had the most outstanding manny working in a disability area. Men are always welcome and but yes, women who want part-time work in school hours, or just a few days a week, most welcome contact.
JANET: Terrific so how do people find you?
STEPHANIE: I have a website under the name Henrietta's Help at Home and a very active facebook page. I do my own posting, my own social media.
JANET: And you do it very well.
STEPHANIE: Thank you. Never like and paying someone else to do something I can do. Now that also what you would see if you go on to either of those sites, they're pretty unsophisticated but, yes it's family friendly. It gets the message across. I did not want to be seen as flashy and you know high-tech. No we're we're people-based, and of all walks of life and all personalities. I post probably on up to 15 different sites per week, both regionally, and to interest groups. Yes. I'm out and about. I bump into people in coffee shops or petrol stations and when we chat I know to carry a business card and I do conventional advertising as well, like print media. Particularly because yes I still deal with some people who've only got landlines, yes. Albeit one of the services we can connect to, is encouraging older people to have mobile phones, and be a bit tech savvy, and you know just to for their own safety, but there was no point in me only having internet access. Yeah.
JANET: It's a different market, yeah, that's true, very true. So Stephanie what do you do when you're not working?
STEPHANIE: I'm in the funny situation where I think I'm actually starting the business again, for the third time. COVID being most recent, and and then just unfortunately, my second year in business as you know, Janet I had a pretty major health incident. So that plateaued the business, yes. So I'm now back to and currently it is a six or seven day a week. Okay. job and that's because yes, wedding nanny's, hospitality, are going to be weekend and interviewing people who are transitioning. I'm pleased to say, yes, some of the senior carers, some of the child care nannies, are coming out of the organizations because they do want the more personal relationships. So I do interview on the weekend and things like that. But once the business, when the jigsaw pieces are in place, I do get the odd day off here and there, or afternoon off and that's where I just get to enjoy the Peninsula. I'm gradually getting to learn all the spots. Yes. I've restrained myself on wineries or I know where they are. I come from or are related to Western Australian wine. yes but art galleries, just the scenery, just loving it and yeah I'm always taking a long time coming home from my appointments, because I like to try a different route.
JANET: Yeah that's a good idea. That's fantastic. Well thank you for joining us Stephanie. It's been great to learn more about you and your business. Thank you and I hope everything moves forward, and you're a great success.
JANET: Thank you, and that concludes another episode of On the Couch with McNeill Real Estate. Stay tuned on our youtube channel. Please subscribe and stay tuned for more videos! Bye for now.
