If you have a busy household with children, having a chauffeur can make a great difference to your daily routine. A chauffeur can bring structure, and most importantly – can bring organisation and calm to the school run. No longer will you have to stress about getting different children to different schools in time. No longer would you have to worry about getting stuck in traffic, planning routes or structuring everybody’s starting and finishing times. A chauffeur can do all that for you! However – can a chauffeur look after your children? Even though all the above may sound very appealing – you want to make sure you are getting the right, suited and qualified person for the role.
Experience
Firstly, when looking at if a chauffeur can look after your children, you want to find out if they have the right experience. Someone being a great driver is one thing. Someone being a highly experienced chauffeur is another. However, having experience working with and for children as a chauffeur can be a completely different ballgame.
Not every chauffeur will be suited to work with or drive around your children. Many chauffeurs, for example, come from a very corporate background where they are used to driving executives around. This is a very different atmosphere, and a very different job altogether, from working for a private family with children.
So does the chauffeur you are looking to hire have experience working for families? Have they ever worked with kids, have they driven children around? Also – have they been alone in the car with the children or was there always another supervising adult? This again can make a big difference and requires a completely different set of skills. If there is a parent or nanny present with the children, the job might not differ too much for the chauffeur. Being alone, and responsible for the children, however, is again completely different. As the chauffeur will take on the caring role and responsibility for the children at that time.
Preference
Specific experience working in a similar setting is one thing and might be difficult to find exactly. So if you have found several chauffeurs you like, but they might not have worked in an exact similar setup before. Then you do not have to disregard them completely. Because they might genuinely love children, have children themselves or younger siblings, and can make a great family chauffeur. It depends on you. Are set on someone who has had previous experience working for families, you might have a limited selection of chauffeurs to choose from. If you, however, would be willing to give someone a chance who may come from a more corporate or formal background, but who has a genuine love for children, then this could be something to consider!
Boxes That Must Be Ticked
Coming back to the initial question of: can a chauffeur look after your children? Besides the things discussed above, there are certain boxes that need to be ticked if you would have a chauffeur work near or with your children. In the UK, anybody working near children or vulnerable adults has to have an up to date DBS check. This is a very important thing to do. If you have anyone work near your children, let alone have them being the sole responsible adult, you want to make sure this is checked.
Besides this, make sure you thoroughly check references or have an agency that does all the vetting and background checking for you. You want to make sure your new chauffeur is who they say they are. And that their background, previous work experience and references are correct.
Finally, make sure you do a trial of at least several hours, or several days if possible. You want to make sure you get to know this person well, and that they fit in with your family and family life. Your children must trust the chauffeur, and get on with them too. You can only get so much from a CV or an interview. A trial is a perfect opportunity to get to know each other and to find out if this could be the perfect match!
How Polo & Tweed Can Help
Do you now know if a chauffeur can look after your children? Would you be happy knowing that your chauffeur would be vetted, check and qualified to do so? If you are indeed looking for the right chauffeur for you and your children, we can help! Polo & Tweed has an extensive database of excellent and experienced chauffeurs all over the world. We have an extremely extensive and thorough checking and vetting process. This means each person on our books is thoroughly vetted before you would even see their CV. So if you’d like us to find your perfect private Chauffeur do get in touch and we look forward to helping you.