This article is specifically about hiring a household employee, such as a housekeeper (trabajadora de casa particular, or nana).  Much of the material is relevant when hiring someone for a business, as well.

Preparation

First, gather information.  You’ll need basic data for the various trámites (linkme) you’ll need to do, and you’ll want to determine if your future employee is a special case for any of them.  Have all of the following information somewhere accessible, since you’ll probably need to refer back to it even after you’ve set everything up.

Steps

1. Prepare and sign a contract.  You don’t need a lawyer for this, though you may wish to consult with one.  Also, it does not need to be signed before a notary public.  You can download a template for a contract for a nana here (at the time of this writing the page has separate templates for Chilean and foreign employees).
2. Start declaring/paying their imposiciones on PreviRed.com at the beginning of each month.  This web site will calculate the payments you need to make, based on information you enter about your employee, and then either generate a printable payment coupon you can take to a payment center such ServiPag (linkme), or connect you to your bank for an online payment.  The alternative to this involves filling out forms in quadruplicate, so I’m not going to even describe it here.*

That’s really all there is to it.  See Terminating an employee (linkme) to find out how the story ends.

Some miscellaneous observations/tips:

• Your nana may ask you to pay her under the table or to declare a lower gross salary than what she really earns, in order to avoid withholding (most nanas don’t make enough to pay income tax) or to increase her benefits in Fonasa (lower income = higher subsidy).  Both of these practices are illegal (linkme), so from one expat with a revocable visa to another, I urge you stand firm and declare the real numbers.
• Keep the contract up to date.  It will give you firmer ground to stand on in the event any legal issues should arise in the future.
• Sadly, though they can be required to work 12 hours per day 6 days per week, minimum wage for nannies/housekeepers is lower than it is for the rest of the workforce (at the time of this writing, it’s at 83%).  This strikes me as so odd, since the women who care for your children are performing arguably the most important work you can pay a person for.  The government has begun to close that gap, and on March 1st, 2011, it will be eliminated.  Fortunately for most of the nanas I know, it’s not an issue, since they’re paid significantly more than the standard minimum.  Hopefully you can afford to do the same.

See also

• Employment and social security concepts (linkme)
• The Trabajadora de Casa Particular section of the Dirección del Trabajo portal, including the Guía de Empleadoras y Trabajadoras de Casa Particular

*Suffice it to say that one month of missed declaration and payment had me waiting on the phone and in lines at the AFP, Fonasa and INP, which may very well be standard operating procedure for those who pay imposiciones the old way.  I will never miss that deadline again.