Starting your own business is refreshing; for the most part it is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. When your business starts doing well, you may feel happier – until you realize how much you have to do.
After some success, most employers consider hiring one or more employees, and you will likely do the same. However, employees come with a fair amount of risk, which means you should weigh the pros and cons of adding someone to your team before you schedule any interviews.
Pros: Why You Need Someone to Work With
In the history of the Fortune 500, the list has never featured a business that was understaffed. In order to push the boundaries of your success, you will definitely need to assemble a team, and with any luck, that team will grow into a company, then a corporation, and eventually a global corporation. The reasons two people are better than one (in business) are as follows:
Extra hand. By adding employees to your business, you can double the amount of work you do. An extra pair of hands (and the brains that go with it) will be able to take over the menial tasks while you focus on ways to grow and improve your business. It adds productivity there’s nothing to scoff at, considering how quickly you can complete projects and get paid when you don’t have to tackle all your business responsibilities at once.
Additional insight. No two people are exactly the same, which is both a curse and a blessing. On the one hand, adding someone new might make you uncomfortable in more than one way. However, chances are good that the newfound diversity in your workspace is taking your business in a fresh and profitable direction. You may be a self-employed person, but your employees may have an MBA, which gives you exciting opportunities and unknown business insights one that brings you both success, while opening your eyes to new paths of growth (both professional and personal).
Commitment to the company. You put everything you have into this endeavor, so the idea of bringing in someone less connected to your business may seem daunting. However, employees who come on the ground floor are much more likely to be as committed as you are. By being part of the business story, your employees will feel part of something bigger, which is important to many enthusiastic young job seekers. Plus, salary and benefits never hurt to keep employees around.
Cons: Why You’re Better Alone
Then again, a full-time employee can be quite a burden. If you make a mistake and hire the wrong people, your small business could be reeling for months. Your business needs to be rock solid before you can even consider hiring new people, so if you have any doubts about your financial solvency, you can save that job board ad for later. Here are some reasons to delay the hiring process:
Salary and benefits costs. Employees are expensive. More likely than not, you’ve reinvested any and all of the income you generate back into your business, but few employees work for free. Even though you might submit payment ideas in the form of company stock or stock options, it’s still important to understand how much you can afford to pay your first worker, just in case.
Hiring costs / training time. Generally, the smaller your business, the more time and money you waste during the recruiting process. Since you can’t work while reviewing applications, interviewing, and training your new hire, a new hire charges you an outrageous amount: around $50,000, according to Economic and Business Research Center. Fortunately, the more employees you hire, the lower the cost of the hiring process will be.
Inflexible working hours. When you work for yourself, you can usually start and stop work whenever you want. Unfortunately, this isn’t true once you have employees to look after. While the internet has made flexible working time more feasible, you will need to work alongside your new employee for a while to make sure he or she completes assignments to your standards. Love it or hate it, your first hire is the start of your 9-to-5, 40+ hour work week.
Only you can determine what is right for your business, which means only you know when to hire your first worker. By weighing the pros and cons – your needs versus the cost – you should be able to decide whether to hang a “Now Hiring” listing in your window.
