Employees

Finding Employees

When your business starts to grow, you’ll need employees to keep up with the demand of your work. The type of business you have will determine where you look for employees. Here are some places to start:

Public Services

Every state has an employment service agency, often called Unemployment Bureau or Job Service. There are local offices throughout each state that will help business recruit employees.

Paid Services

Employment Agencies can find both general labor and skill-specific employees. These services can pre-screen employees for you, checking their aptitude with appropriate skills. However, you will pay more for these employees since some of the wages paid go to the employment company.

Online sites can help find highly-specialized and high-level executive from across the country. The sites just provide an introduction and you will need to perform the screening of employees.

Interns

If the job you need to fill can act as a learning experience for someone in high school or college, you may be able to get an intern to fill the position. The benefits of an intern are that he or she may be willing to accept lower payment in exchange for the experience of working in your field. They often go out of their way to do a good job because you are a future reference.

The down side to interns is that they’re temporary and often have to work around their school schedule.

Help Wanted Ads

The traditional help wanted signs and newspaper ads are good ways to alert a lot of interested people to your job opening, especially if there are experience requirements that many people fill. However, you will have a large number of people, many that won’t be qualified, inquiring about the position. This may take a lot of your time.

Temporary Employees

Sometime businesses have a rush of work that they know won’t last. Temporary employees offer help without committing to long-term employment. However, you may end up paying more for them and they may not be as qualified. If the employment is going to last 6 months, it is often a better idea to hire a full-time employee.

Temporary Employment Services

Employment services can often deliver workers fast – sometimes as quickly as the next day. And the service firm takes care of payroll, taxes, worker’s compensation and other benefits and costs.

There are many employment service firms, so it pays to be critical in choosing one. Look for a well-established company that recruits aggressively. They’re likely to have the most skilled labor pool to choose from. Also inquire about their testing and evaluation procedures to make sure you only get workers that can perform the tasks required. Finally, be sure the company looks into the quality of the work its employees perform.

Professional Employer Organizations

PEO arrangements are often called co-employment. Your employees are employed by both you and the PEO. They become legally responsible for payroll, benefits, hiring, evaluation, firing and record-keeping. This relationship saves a lot of time in paperwork and research into vendors (such as health insurance). It can also ease your mind, knowing that it is someone else’s responsibility to adhere to and comply with the many federal and state employment policies.

Service Contracting

A service contract is an agreement in which you hire a company to provide a service during a specific period of time. The price of this service is agreed upon ahead of time as are other details about the service provided. The service company is required to hire and pay the staff, ensure they perform their job adequately, and provide them with all the materials they need to complete their tasks.

Common services that are contracted are security, payroll accounting, message delivery, maintenance, janitorial and waste management. When considering a contract, investigate:

• References – Make sure other companies are satisfied with the service they have provided.
• Insurance coverage – A service company should have liability coverage for its employees.
• Paperwork – If licenses are required to perform certain services, check to make sure the company has them.
• Guarantee – There should be consequences if the company does not perform work as they have agreed to.

As with any legal documents, you should have your legal counsel review any service contracts before signing them.

Employee Taxes

Any business with employees is responsible for paying numerous federal, state and local taxes. Some are deducted directly from payroll checks. Some your business must pay. Others are shared by business and employee. Not only are you responsible for paying these taxes, you must have them by certain deadlines or face often considerable penalties.

The major taxes that you should be aware of are federal, state and local withholding tax; Social Security taxes; and Federal and State Unemployment Taxes.

Employee Benefits

Benefit packages are a major aspect of hiring and keeping employees. The cost of these programs is a large part of the cost of each employee. The administration of these programs requires a lot of human resources time, expertise and effort. But lack of benefits can be a huge hindrance to finding qualified employees and growing the company. Finding the right balance between an affordable benefits package and one that will attract the level of skilled employees that you need takes a lot of effort and expertise.

Employees don’t just prefer jobs with benefits. Sometimes they need them. They provide healthcare coverage which is often unaffordable otherwise. They also provide a safety net for accidents and illnesses, so that the employee’s family can survive economic hardships.

There are also benefits that are not necessities but make a business more attractive to employees.. These include retirement plans, profit sharing, extended vacation, childcare, to name a few. If recruiting in your industry is very competitive, you might want to consider adding some extra benefits to attract the best employees.