A professional cleaner can save you a lot of work in the household. Especially if you often do not have the time or the desire to do the daily housework, home help is a sensible solution. But what do you have to consider when hiring a cleaning lady and how do you keep your house clean when it comes to insurance? And what is the advantage of a cleaning portal? We will explain it to you.
Why a cleaning lady?
You need a cleaner when you realize that the housework is getting too much for you, you don’t have time to clean and tidy up and you start to feel uncomfortable because of the work you have left behind in your own home. A helper can also be useful if you prefer to spend your free time with friends, children, or partners rather than chasing dust bunnies behind the sofa. A lack of strength or physical impairment can also be reasons to look for domestic help.
What does a cleaning lady earn?
On average, a professional cleaning lady will cost you between 25 and 40 francs per hour. However, 25 francs per hour is the absolute minimum wage for a cleaning lady and very little. In addition to the hourly wage, the cleaning lady’s wages include compulsory insurance and the cost of cleaning materials. So if you expect an hourly wage of between 25-40 francs, you are on the safe side. Unless you do without the necessary insurance and employ your cleaning staff ” illegally”. However, this is not advisable as this type of employment is illegal and neither you nor your cleaning lady is covered in the event of damage to property or an accident.
2 possibilities: Hire a cleaning lady on your own or book her via a cleaning platform
If you have decided on a cleaner, you have two options: Either you hire your cleaning lady on your own or you decide on a cleaner, which you book on a cleaning portal.
1. Hire and insure a cleaning woman independently
Whoever hires a domestic worker becomes an employer, with the rights and obligations that go with it. Insurance is an important part of any employer. In this section, we explain which insurance you need for your cleaning lady.
Where to find a suitable cleaning lady?
The first question is where to find a suitable cleaning lady for your household. There are two options here: Either you search for a cleaning lady on the Internet or you look offline for suitable domestic help. The Internet has the advantage that it is well networked and there are various portals where private individuals can advertise for free. The disadvantage is that people who are not so internet-savvy are often not found on these portals. Therefore, you should definitely also look for offline advertisements in your area.
Register the cleaning lady with the AHV
In Switzerland, you are obliged to register your household help with the AHV. This can be done with the personal AHV number of your cleaner and with the AHV office in your canton. When registering, you must state the hourly wage of your cleaner, and this is used to calculate the amount you have to hand in as AHV at the end of each month.
Is accident insurance necessary?
If you have registered your cleaner with the AHV, accident insurance is required. You are probably wondering whether your household helper’s health insurance will not cover accidents of any kind. But this is not the case. Your household helper’s health insurance will only pay for accidents that are not work-related. This means that you, as an employer, are liable for all accidents that occur within your household or during activities on your behalf. You should therefore take out accident insurance for your cleaning staff. Even if your employees only work a few hours a month for you, you are legally obliged to insure your employees against occupational accidents. An accident insurance policy will cost you around 100 francs per year.
If your domestic worker works for you for more than eight hours a week, you must also insure them against non-occupational accidents. Either you indicate directly on the AHV form which insurance company you would like to have your domestic help insured with, or you look for a suitable insurance company yourself.
Wage entitlement in the event of absence due to illness
Domestic workers are subject to the rights and obligations set out in the Swiss Code of Obligations. However, in addition to the Code of Obligations, there are also cantonal provisions for domestic workers, the so-called regular employment contracts. Most regular employment contracts, such as that of the canton of Zurich, state that employers are obliged to take out daily sickness benefit insurance for their domestic workers.
Daily sickness benefit insurance pays 80% of your domestic workers’ wages for a maximum of 720 days if they are absent due to illness. If you have not taken out daily sickness benefit insurance for your cleaning specialist, you are obliged to continue paying your domestic worker in case of illness, which can be very expensive for you.
However, the employer can bypass the conclusion of the obligatory daily sickness benefit insurance by concluding a separate written employment contract with the cleaning staff, expressly stating in it the invalidity of the normal employment contract. There are numerous ready-made model contracts available on the Internet. If the normal employment contract is not valid, the regulations of the Swiss Code of Obligations for domestic workers automatically apply.
For you as an employer, it is much cheaper to draw up your own employment contract with your cleaning staff. This is because the Code of Obligations requires that in the event of illness, the salary must continue to be paid for three weeks in the first year of service. After that, a “reasonable longer period” is prescribed. You can see what this means for the employment of your cleaning lady on the scales used by the cantonal courts of Basel, Bern and Zurich.
2. HIRING A CLEANING LADY VIA A CLEANING PLATFORM
If you come across a cleaning portal such as Movu.ch, where you can book a professional cleaning help directly online, it offers you a number of advantages. You don’t have to officially act as the employer of your cleaning lady, but the cleaning lady is employed by a professional cleaning company. The cleaning company, in turn, takes care of all the above-mentioned insurances and relieves you of the time-consuming and costly bureaucratic issues.
A further advantage is that the cleaning staff usually bring their own cleaning materials and you are relieved of additional costs in this respect. In addition, you always have a contact person to answer your questions and are not left to your own devices in case of problems or uncertainties.
To find an experienced cleaner for your household, simply fill out the online form and apply for a trial cleaning in your home. If you are satisfied with the cleaning result, you can continue the contract without any obligation, without a minimum contract period.
