At some point, a successful work from home business will grow
large enough that one person won’t have the time to do everything
that needs to be done in a day. That’s when you’ll need to hire some
staff.
Staff Will Help You Increase
Profits
It’s likely you were a wage earner for a
good part of your work career, but you may not realize the exact
nature of what it meant to be an employee. The fact is, you were
hired to help create profit for your employer — if hiring you didn’t
help them be more profitable, they wouldn't hired you. When you
accepted a wage, you agreed to create profit for your
employer.
In exchange for paying your wages, you employer
took all the financial risk while providing you with the resources
you needed to carry out your duties. The understanding is, of
course, that if you ever stopped making money for the company, you’d
be out of a job.
So you can see why the situation is win-win for your employer:
they get to keep most of the profits you create, while at the same
time maintaining enough control over you so that you don't create
any extra risk for them.
Employing people is
basically an investment — you put in some money as wages
and, if you hire the right people, you get more profit back. If your
profits stagnate, you can cancel or adjust your investment by
letting a bad employee go and hiring someone
else.
The Interviewed Becomes the
Interviewer
There are many ways to find staff who
will help you increase your profits, starting with placing a
classified ad for the job in your local newspaper. Also, depending
on the nature of the position you have available, you may be able to
hire a freelancer online.
Positions such as bookkeepers, graphic and web designers,
copywriters and so on are easily hired online at freelance sites
such as Elance.com. However, if you need someone to be physically
present at your location to perform duties such as shipping and
packaging, product assembly and so on, you’ll need to hire someone
in your local area.
The next step in the hiring process is
conducting an interview. Since you've probably been through the
interview process yourself, you probably enjoy being on the on the
other side of the table or a change. During the interview, keep in
mind that the purpose of the interview is to try to figure out
whether the person you're interview is the right person for the job
you have available.
Here are a few ideas for
questions:
‘Tell me about yourself.’ This may sound
clichéd, but the applicant’s response will give some clues about
their personality and what they think is important, as well as their
ability to think on their feet.
‘Why should I hire you?’
You're looking for the person who’s been listening to what you’ve
explained about the job and responds by telling you how they meet
your needs.
You can also give an example of a real problem in
your business and ask them how they’d solve it. This will give you
more insight into their abilities and it’s gives them an opportunity
to impress you as well.
‘What did you like or dislike about
your last job?’ This gives you an opportunity to spot problem
candidates — if they use it as an excuse to have a bit of a moan,
you probably shouldn't hire them.
Remember ask them
open-ended questions so they can expand their answers, rather than
yes and no questions, which will just lead to short answers that
won’t help much.
Finally, always keep in mind that by law,
you can’t ask as anything that could be deemed as discrimination,
including questions related to age, race, religion, nationality,
marital status, medical history or disability.
Paying
Their Taxes
Finally, when you hire someone, you need
to remember that you're setting yourself up for tax complications.
You’ll need to withhold their income taxes, as well as various other
medical and security/insurance taxes. If you get this wrong, you can
set both you and your employees up for a lot of inconvenience.
Another option to prevent having to deal with all the extra
bookkeeping regarding employee deductions is to hire a freelancer
who already has their own business setup and have them invoice you
for the work.
By now you should have an accountant who can
help you. Make sure you're paying a decent wage for the job,
otherwise you’ll have a high turnover rate is more costly in the
long run.
