As a business owner, hiring employees is inevitable as you grow. For a small business, every new person you hire will significantly impact your business, which means the stakes are high.
Small businesses face unique challenges when it comes to hiring staff. Hiring your first employee will be the most significant step, but the challenges go beyond that first member of your growing team.
Small Business Hiring Tips
There are insurance issues to consider, ways to recruit employees for small businesses, how to attract employees, the costs of the hiring and training process, and how to find the right employees for the job.
These points are more significant for a small business than a large corporation, where recruits may join the company daily or weekly. A small business that hires employees is taking a significant risk. Before beginning the process, you must know what to expect and how to hire good employees. Here are some things to consider before hiring an employee for your business.
Things to Consider Before Hiring an Employee
Let’s look at some of these small businesses hiring challenges or considerations:
Cost: It is crucial to understand the costs involved in the hiring process. The cost of an employee includes much more than the salary. It will include recruitment, training, onboarding, and new equipment payments.
All these costs of hiring a new employee can be even higher than the employee’s salary!
Productivity time: You should also remember that for the first month your new employee works, they will only function at about 25% productivity while still learning how to do the job. It can take up to five months before a new hire reaches full productivity.
Insurance: You should consider two types of insurance when hiring small business staff. The first is the benefits you will have to pay for, including medical care. It’s also important to remember that you may need to add insurance policies to what you already have.
Here are some types of insurance you may need to consider or adjust when hiring new staff:
- General Liability Insurance – protects your business against damages caused by you or your employees to another person or their property.
- Property Insurance – Hiring new employees will require purchasing new equipment or any other property. Property insurance ensures that these are protected against theft, fire and many more.
- Worker’s Compensation – This provides coverage if an employee is injured while on the job.
Company Culture: There is no denying that hiring employees impacts the culture of any company, especially businesses. It’s crucial to find a way to streamline new hires in the company in the least disruptive way possible.
Small Business Hiring Tips
Here are some small business tips and hiring strategies to make hiring for your small business as easy as possible and set you up for success:
Use Your Contacts
Personal connections and recommendations are great ways to find employees. Reach out to people you’ve already built relationships with and trust to find the right person to join your business. You’ll have a strong built-in referral and know you can trust someone if it comes through a personal connection.
Provide a Clear Job Description
The best way to get the right people to apply for your job is to be clear about what the job entails. Include the job description, a daily list of responsibilities, how the job fits into the company, and any specific skills needed. In this way, the candidates are limited to the people who will be suitable.
Look in the Right Places
Find out where the people you are looking for will be and go there. It could be a physical location, online meeting, or social media space. For example, looking for a painter at a sales rep conference doesn’t make sense, but if you need college students for a part-time job, a local college at lunchtime might be the place.
Wait For The Right Person To Show Up
You decided to hire because you need someone, but it’s important to remember that you don’t need to settle for a candidate just because they applied for the job. Make sure your new hire offers you all that your company requires.
Be Clear About Your Company Values
It is important to be clear about your company’s values by properly highlighting them in the job description, as it will help attract the right employee.
Unfortunately, it can be much easier for corporations to attract employees with benefits and resources unavailable to smaller companies. However, your company culture and values, growth potential, and employee investment can be a huge draw for some people. Highlighting those benefits is one of our top small business hiring tips.
Conclusion
Hiring is a challenge for any company, regardless of its size. However, by heeding these small businesses’ hiring tips, you’ll set yourself up for success, no matter how small your team is!