Hire Your First Employee. Rhonda Abrams

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СКАЧАТЬ most small businesses, the first hires fall into one of these categories:

      

Administrative

      

Bookkeeping

      

Sales

      

Production/service workers

      Use the worksheet “Business Tasks” to brainstorm about the jobs you need done in your business. You will likely produce a fairly long list. Don’t worry. After compiling your list, indicate whether you want to keep these tasks for yourself, hand them over to someone else, or share these duties. This will start to give you an idea of the jobs you’d like to hire others to complete.

      As you jot down your ideas, be aware of the two biggest mistakes business owners make when hiring an employee:

      1. Handing over too much authority

      2. Not giving over any authority

      Recognize that you have to relinquish some control if you want your business to grow, and your employee to be effective and satisfied.

      You’re almost certain to have a long, long list of things you’d like someone else to do. Prioritize what you’d like accomplished.

      Can they all be undertaken by the same person? In a small business, it’s typical for people to wear many hats, but you still have to consider whether one real-live person can manage very different tasks. For instance, is it realistic to imagine that the person who handles your administrative paperwork can also do some basic bookkeeping, shipping, and some basic work on your website? Probably. But is it realistic to think the person who’s going to handle your administrative tasks can also manage your computer network, handle your back-end technology needs, and make sales calls? Probably not.

worksheet: Business Tasks

      List—as much as possible—the tasks you need done in your business. Identify which ones you want to keep entirely for yourself, which you’d like to hand over to an employee (or other help) and which tasks you’ll share.

      Also, don’t be surprised if you end up in a different place than you expected. Maybe at first you just knew you needed a sales person only to discover that an administrative assistant makes more sense.

      Use the Worksheet, “Employee Tasks” to list the kinds of jobs you want your new employee to handle, what background they need to accomplish those tasks, and how many hours a week you expect them to devote to those tasks.

Help Wanted, But How Much?

      Now that you’ve decided what position you should fill first, you need to consider how much time you’ll require from an employee. Do you need a full-time worker? A part-timer? A contractor or consultant? Based on your job requirements—and your budget—consider the range of your options for getting the help you need:

      

Full-time employees. This is just what it sounds like: you hire individuals to work for you, devoting between 30-40 hours a week (or more), usually five days a week. Full-time workers can be salaried employees or paid hourly. Because they work for you full-time, you know you have their time, skills and attention when you need it.

      

Part-time employees. It’s very likely that you’ll have certain functions that don’t require a full-time employee. Let’s say you only need an administrative assistant a few hours each day or you need help in your bed & breakfast on the weekends. You may even be able to find part-time employees for some professional tasks, such as marketing, managing technology, or bookkeeping. Utilizing part-time employees saves money, but they may be tempted to look for full-time work elsewhere. Generally, part-time workers are paid by the hour. They are still covered by all employment laws.

      

Independent contractors. Before you ever hire an employee, it’s likely you’ll get help by engaging an independent contractor. Independent contractors are individuals who perform specific tasks, generally for a limited period of time. Most often they’re used for professional tasks, such as accounting, marketing, or tech help. Using an independent contractor offers many advantages—most notably, you’re not responsible for payroll taxes and they’re not covered by labor laws. You also control costs because you only pay for the time you actually use them. And you can cut back on their services rapidly if they’re no longer needed. But the government carefully limits the use of independent contractors, and you can get in big trouble if you don’t follow the law (see Chapter 3 on Employee Status).

      

Interns. Interns are usually students or other individuals just starting out in a profession who are eager to learn the ropes and are willing to work for minimum wage (or even for free—but only if they receive college credit and are doing meaningful work) to gain much-needed experience. Working with interns is a great way to get inexpensive help in your business while also getting fresh ideas from a younger audience. However, interns are very inexperienced, require significant supervision time, and leave quickly.

       HIRE Learning

       A Part-Timer in Your Future?

       Small businesses with 1 to 24 employees hire a quarter of their employees on a part-time basis. In businesses with more than 100 employees, part-timers make up only about 14 percent of the workforce.

       —Small Business Administration

worksheet: Employee Tasks

      Use this worksheet to capture the tasks you need to accomplish to run your business, the skills required, then add up the amount of time each will take.

      Also, consider whether the employee will be:

      

Permanent. Most employees are hired on a permanent basis. This doesn’t mean that they have life-time employment (you want to make certain they know they’re hired on an “at will basis”—see Chapter 3 on Employee Status). But it does mean that the length of time of their employment is open-ended; you both expect it to continue.

      

Temporary. Many companies are seasonal, and you may only need employees during your busy times. You can hire full or part-time employees on a temporary СКАЧАТЬ