As every business grows, there comes a point where the entrepreneur themselves must expand their workforce. For some businesses, this means taking on hundreds of new employees. For others, this may just be an opportunity to seek out a few freelancers. Either way, to ensure that your business continues to flourish with its new success, it’s time to look into hiring some new help.
Hiring Your Staff
For businesses that are just entering the hiring phase, it can be a bit difficult deciding where to begin. Should your new hire be an independent contractor or should you go the route of taking on a fulltime employee? While both have their pros, it is important to understand which employee will best benefit your business. In this article, a few things are suggested if you are considering taking on new hires.
The Type of Business You Have
Certain businesses can easily hire on contractors to do their work while others would be remiss to not hire someone to work fulltime in-house. This is the case for businesses that handle a lot of sensitive or confidential information—a job that should be given to an actual employee.
Additionally, depending on your industry, it may be easier to hire one type over the other.
For example, working in an industry that tends to have more freelancers than people searching for full-time employment, it is best to opt for a contractor. Such is the case for businesses that need creative work done. Examples being, photography, writing, graphic design, and the like.
The Quantity of Work
When debating on how to make your hire, you also need to determine the amount of work you need done, as well as how long it will take to complete the work. If there are multiple projects that will take months to complete, your business will likely benefit more from hiring an employee. On the other hand, short-term projects and tasks can be contracted out.
Additionally, you should consider the level of detail you need for your projects. A contractor who is only with your company for a short period of time is not the best person to work on projects that require high attention to detail and an intimate understanding of your business or industry.
The Variety of Your Needs
If you find that the work you need accomplished requires more than one person with a variety of skills, you may find what you’re looking for with contractors. As an expert in their field, each person can complete their project to the best of their abilities.
This allows for your business to receive the highest quality of work without you having to bring on multiple employees. In certain cases, you may not need to take on any new employees. Many businesses today are turning to automation to streamline their workforce, using software and sophisticated technology to keep their amount of employees to a minimum.
Can Software Do The Work?
There’s a ton of administrative tasks that can be handled by technology and a small staff easily. Is it really worth hiring someone to handle invoices or email outreach or even something more sophisticated like data backup and recovery if you can invest in software to handle these tasks long-term?
That’s something you’ll have to weigh the pros and cons of. If you can pull it off, implementing software where you would have had to spend on a new employee can save a ton of money in the long run.
Identify Your Budget
Your budget is the major factor in determining who your business can and can’t hire. It is crucial as a business owner to keep your budget as manageable as possible. Changing payment methods to the most updated technology can help you track where and how money is being spent.
Hiring a full time employee will require you to provide benefits, stick to an annual salary, as well as being required to pay payroll taxes. With a contractor, you may end up paying more overall, as their rates are likely to be higher than that of a regular employee.
Determine the Seasonality of the Position
Taking on new hires should always be considered through the lens of seasonality. Is your business particularly busier during one part of the year? If this is the case, you may want to hire in a temporary position or only take on contractors.
With seasonal positions, it is easier to let go of employees during the slower months, only using them when business picks back up. This saves you from having to extract a large salary out of your budget.
Are You Ready to Invest?
When you hire employees, you will need to invest in them. This means spending money and time to train, recruit, and manage new hires. If you are looking into taking on full time employees, consider if you have the resources to make this investment. If you would rather have the help without making the commitment to invest over the long term, consider hiring a contractor. Since contractors are temporary, the investment is very minimal.
Considering all of these aspects of hiring will help you determine the type of person you need to add to the team. With the right decision, your business will benefit significantly from it. This will allow you to focus more on the success of your business; all while give you some free time. Contractor, temporary, seasonal or full time worker—the best for your business is the one that allows you to succeed.
