Recent job descriptions of estate managers have become a laughable list of unrealistic expectations and impossible deliverables. As with any job, an employee should have reasonable agility to adapt to ever-changing work environments. While the growing trend of homeowners wanting fewer staff in their homes is understandable, it shouldn’t be seen as an opportunity for unethical behavior.

Having an online presence and participating in social media as an industry resource is critical to accessing the unique deliverables of our work. Not to mention, social media is one of the best sources of getting jobs, resourcing resume services, and accessing online testimonials. So how can our industry peacefully co-exist with the chaos of social media?

Although most seasoned estate managers have the skillset and experience to perform a broad range of services, including almost every aspect of luxury home management and care, they can’t do all these jobs effectively simultaneously. They might have the skillset, but they need the right resources to make magic happen.

The wild west nature of the domestic staffing industry often blurs the line of ethical compensation. Classifying your household staff as salaried employees can seem like a win-win relationship at first; however, this can snowball into a situation with a damaging outcome.

For the past week my kitchen has been converted into a print shop – messy with all of the pieces of producing a 3-ring binder landscape manual for a garden that I first designed 20 years ago. Since the majority of my work has evolved into creating digital systems, this has been a nice shift from my normal computer-focused daily routine.

On my first day of work for a West Hollywood couple, I was told to correct an employee who had been working for the family for four years…