When recruiting household staff there are many standard skills and qualities that everybody looks for including excellent communication and interpersonal skills and a willingness to be flexible.
However, although desirable for most employers, being bilingual isn’t always a prerequisite for household staff candidates even though there is lots of evidence to suggest it should be.
Research has shown that bilingual staff are often smarter, quicker and better multitaskers, all great qualities in any household staff.
The reason being that the development of the brain undergoes different processes when it learns to speak more than one language and ultimately bilingual people have a more developed cognitive brain. This enables them to look at problems with broader and multiple perspectives when problem-solving, allowing for a quicker and well thought out solution to be found.
Speaking different languages also requires switching between different speech patterns, grammatical structures and all the little nuances each language has, therefore to be able to deal with this efficiently the brain has no other option but to switch between multiple tasks faster and with less mistakes. This indicates bilingual people are better multitaskers.
Although it is not just about better performance as hiring household staff that can speak two or more languages can have a multitude of benefits for you and for your family, especially if they spend a great deal of time around your children.
If your Nanny and other domestic staff speak a second language your children can grow up with more than one language in the home, which studies has shown is a key benefit for fluency. Being bilingual is one of the greatest gifts and advantages you can give your children and if their day to day activities with their Nanny are conducted in a second language, learning can be simple and natural. A bilingual Nanny can provide the care and attention you would expect of any Nanny, but with the added benefit of enriching your child’s learning and view of the world.
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