As a small business owner one of the biggest joys can be seeing your company grow and expand. As your business increases, however, there are additional variables to consider. You may need to start hiring more people to take over duties and responsibilities and it’s important to start the on-boarding process in an efficient and effective manner for all parties. Considering your benefits approach when it comes to new hires and protocols is an important first step.
1. Make Your Objectives and Expectations Clear. When considering hiring an employee, make sure the objective of said employee is clearly stated. What’s the role and purpose of this employee and how will they contribute to the overall increase in strategic success for your organization? Before beginning the search for a new hire, make sure your goals and objectives are clearly stated. If you don’t know what your expectations are for your employees, how will your employees know? What criteria will output be judged by? What do you consider success in this role? What tools will employees need to be successful? Many small businesses are strapped for time and resources. Developing a clear objective for employees, business growth strategies, and employee expectations and benefits will help make adding new team members a smooth transition. Examples of creating a clear objective may mean defining the following considerations:
- Determine the need for a new or replacement position
- Set clear expectations for job performance in the position
- What skills must the new hire possess? Both quantitative (i.e. hard skills like program proficiencies, accreditations, degrees, etc.) and qualitative skills (i.e. soft skills like working with virtual teams or experience project managing, etc.) should be considered.
- Set a clear salary range so candidates know whether or not this position fits within their expectations for pay.
- What benefits do you offer employees?
- What’s your company culture like? Will this employee fit in with the culture within your organization?
2. Consider Adding Benefits that Do Not Cost Anything. As the economy continues to improve the competition for companies to find good, competent talent becomes increasingly fierce. To become more attractive to potential employees, consider offering unique benefits to your company and company culture. Most companies no longer offer pension plans and 401(k) plan offerings can be expensive for small businesses. There are other, cost-saving, ways to offer benefits to employees. In fact, many companies are beginning to offer talent benefits that don’t necessarily cost the company anything. As the workforce becomes predominately run by the Millennial generation benefits like offering flexible work hours or work-from-home options can offer significant incentives to future employees. Consider adding these low-cost benefits to your company to gain competitive advantages:
- Flexible working hours
- Maternity and paternity paid leave
- Time off – offer more time off or creative incentives like no work on Fridays during the summer. Just make sure to let everyone know their work must still get done.
- Team lunches
- Learning and career growth opportunities
- Fitness and health incentives
- Group volunteer work.
These sort of incentives also make use of valuable company bounding time. The more a team knows each other outside of work, on a personal level, the more productive and happy time spent at work will be.
3. Be Sure to Complete the Proper Documentation. When a new hire starts there are a lot of trainings and onboarding procedures to handle. Don’t let the stress of getting the new hire trained make you forget about the other important legal documents needed. For each new hire be sure to offer a written formal offer of employment. In this letter you will state things like job function, salary, benefits, work hours, supervising information, etc. You’ll need the employee to complete proper paperwork for payroll. Will they be a salaried W2 employee? Or will you work with them on a contract basis via W9? Be sure to provide a company non-compete and/or confidentiality agreement as well. Other things to consider providing: company handbook, position handbook, health and benefits literature, start date and schedule and automatic deposit forms for payroll. At TrueNorth Retirement Services, we understand the challenges of small business owners. We’re here to help you grow your business every step along the way. Let our team of certified financial planners and business advisors help you
