STWEG guide
The job description for your STWEG's caretaker
In a building with 8 flats, that comes to about 4 hours a week.
Job description planner
Example values for a building with 8 flats. Choose the tasks and adjust the minutes per week to your building.
- Hours per week
- 4.0
- Wage per month, with holiday supplement
- CHF 563
- Wage per year
- CHF 6,759
- Under CHF 22,680 a year: the STWEG can use the simplified procedure.
- Under 8 hours a week: insured against accidents at work only, no NBU deduction.
Next question: how does the STWEG hire and register its caretaker?
Hiring a caretaker for your STWEG →
A job description lists the caretaker's tasks, how often each one is done and who gives the instructions. The hours give the wage, and the wage decides how the STWEG settles its contributions. The planner works out both for your building.
The job description lists the tasks and how often they are done, the hours per week, the wage, one contact person for instructions and who covers during holidays. It is an annex to the employment contract. The STWEG has to give the key points in writing anyway: job, wage and working hours (Art. 330b CO).
Template
What a job description looks like
One page is enough. It is attached to the employment contract, and both sides sign it.
Job description: building caretaking
STWEG Lindenweg 12, 8 flats
One person gives the instructions. The owners' meeting decides who. That way the caretaker does not get eight different sets of requests.
With an hourly wage, she records her hours. Leaves and snow come irregularly: write down that these hours are paid on top.
Winter service means early in the morning and at short notice. Write down from when the paths must be cleared.
Unless agreed otherwise, the employer provides the tools and materials. If the caretaker brings her own, she is entitled to compensation (Art. 327 CO).
At least 4 weeks of holiday a year, 5 until her 20th birthday (Art. 329a CO). Who takes over the stairs and the bins then is best written down here already.
If she also cleans inside an owner's flat, that is a separate job for that owner, with its own registration. The STWEG's job description only covers the shared parts.
From hours to wage
The owners' meeting sets the hourly wage. Work outside the flats does not fall under the standard employment contract for domestic workers (NAV), because AHV does not count it as domestic service (leaflet 2.06). The Code of Obligations applies. You still have to respect a cantonal minimum wage where there is one: Geneva CHF 24.59/h, Basel-Stadt CHF 22.20/h, Jura CHF 21.40/h, Neuchâtel CHF 21.35/h, Ticino CHF 20.00/h.
With an hourly wage, holidays are added as a supplement, 8.33 % for 4 weeks, shown separately on the payslip. If the yearly wage stays under CHF 22,680, the STWEG uses the simplified procedure: one registration, one wage declaration a year. From 8 hours a week, the caretaker is also insured against accidents in her free time.
How the STWEG signs the contract, chooses the accident insurance and registers with the compensation office is explained here: How does a STWEG hire its caretaker?
When the job description changes
The contact person may give individual instructions within the job description (Art. 321d CO). New tasks or more hours, however, change the contract. That only works if the caretaker agrees. Put the change in writing, with the new wage.
If the new hours take the yearly wage over CHF 22,680, the STWEG switches to the ordinary procedure. Check this quickly in the planner above before the owners' meeting decides.