Are You Paying Your Small Business Employees a Fair Wage? Here's How to Know

It's a question worth considering.

One of the most challenging things about being a small business owner is finding the right people to hire. If you're limiting yourself to a smaller staff, you'll want to go out of your way to find competent, trustworthy people to help you run your business.

But hiring the right people is only part of the challenge. You'll also want to do your part to retain the talent you've worked hard to acquire.

Now, there are different steps you can take to go about that, such as offering a solid set of workplace benefits. But perhaps the most important thing you can do to keep your staff members happy is to make sure you're paying them fairly. And if you're not sure whether that's the case, here are some key steps to take.

1. Do some research online

There are plenty of online resources for researching wages by industry and geographic location. Sites like Glassdoor, for example, allow you to look up salary data for different roles, and that way, you can see how your current wages are stacking up.

2. Talk to other small business owners in your area

If you want to get a pulse on how fairly you're paying the people who work for you, talk to other local business owners who employ people with similar skill sets. Let's say you own a small bookshop and want to know if your $15 hourly wage is reasonable. If the independent clothing store owner down the block pays their employees $15 an hour, as does the home furnishings store around the corner, then that might lead you to believe that you're doing right by your employees.

3. Ask your employees what they think

If you really care about paying your employees a fair wage (and you should), ask them what they think about their pay. You can do or directly or create a survey that allows them to answer that question anonymously.

In fact, you may want to go as far as asking them what wage they think is reasonable for their respective positions (assuming they think their current pay is lacking). If you're currently paying $15 an hour, you may find that most workers would be happy with a $2 hourly pay bump to $17. That will give you a sense of whether your employees are being greedy or whether they're being reasonable.

Don't overlook the importance of reasonable wages

Your employees deserve a wage that allows them to cover their bills, build savings, and work toward their financial goals. If you have reason to believe you're underpaying your staff, don't just stay quiet and hope no one protests.

The labor market is strong today, and there's plenty of opportunity for workers to go out and get a different job if they're not satisfied with their current one. But you can get ahead of that problem by regularly assessing the wages you're paying -- and making changes if you have reason to believe you're shortchanging the people who work for you.