Hiring Staff for Your Small Business? 4 Things You Need to Know

Staff can make or break your business.

Small businesses are, indeed, big business in the United States. While many small businesses consist of just one employee (in the form of a self-employed entrepreneur), according to 2020 data from County Business Patterns (via the U.S. Census), nearly 8 million small businesses had employees numbering 500 or fewer. The Small Business Administration in fact defines a small business as one with fewer than 500 employees. Five hundred employees sounds like a large business to me, and if you're preparing to launch your own venture and will need to hire staff, you're likely planning to start with just a few employees.

Depending on the nature of your work, it could be impossible for you to do it all on your own, and so you'll be handing over some of the process to other people who should (ideally) also be invested in generating success. Among all the other steps you'll need to take when getting a business off the ground, finding the right staff members is crucial. Here are some important questions to answer before you bring in new people.

1. Do you need an HR professional?

It's worth considering what your relationship to your new staff members will be before actually bringing them on board. To that end, decide first if you will be overseeing the full employee lifecycle (recruiting candidates, hiring, training, retention, terminating), or if it would make more sense for you to hire a dedicated human resources (HR) professional as your first move. This person can also be empowered to become your new staff's go-to person for concerns like benefits, employee relations, and maintaining a safe workplace. This can free you up to manage business concerns like the work itself and your employees' professional development in your industry. Whether to hire for HR or not will depend on your business, of course. But if you're intending to ultimately have more than a few employees, it's worth considering.

2. What skills are you looking for?

The duties of an HR professional may be fairly apparent (hire, train, and manage staff members on a human level), but you're going to want to seriously think about the kind of duties other employees will be responsible for. Depending on the nature of your business, you might be seeking people with specialized skill sets, and the clearer you can be about your needs, wants, and expectations, the more likely it is you'll be able to hire the right people.

Take the time to craft job descriptions outlining the qualifications your potential hires should have. Be sure to also clearly state as many of the job duties as you can -- "other duties as assigned" can also be included, but staff may not be pleased to learn you have other major expectations of them that weren't mentioned when they applied for the position.

3. How much will you pay?

It's likely that potential staff members will be eager to learn how much you intend to compensate them for their skills and time. After all, most people work for a paycheck. Ideally, a job provides emotional and mental fulfillment to some degree too, but chances are, no one will want to work for wages that aren't fair and aren't enough to pay their bills, save for retirement, and meet financial goals.

Do your research when determining the wages you will offer. There is a lot of data out there on the internet about average salaries in different industries and professions, and for a more local viewpoint, you can ask other business owners in your area about the wages they pay.

4. What benefits will you offer?

Many jobs come with compensation beyond that which is monetary, and it's important to consider whether you will offer other benefits, too. The COVID-19 pandemic changed the landscape of work in many industries, with hybrid and fully remote positions becoming more and more common. If you're opening a restaurant or planning to offer some kind of other in-person service, it's likely not feasible for you to extend this benefit to employees. But if your business is web-based, consider it. After all, if you can save money on renting office space, that's more capital you can put into other parts of the business.

Consider carefully whether you will offer benefits like paid sick and vacation time, a retirement plan, and health insurance. Yes, these expenses will eat into your profits. But if you clearly value the health and happiness of your staff, they will be more inclined to work harder and ensure your business' success.

Hiring staff for a new business venture is a big step. Answering these questions first will help you hire the right people out of the gate and help keep them happy and productive in their jobs with you.