Think about this before you take on your first employee.

First Employees

You’re under the pump!

As a Sole Trader, you ARE your business. Your clients come to you for your products or services because you are YOU. 

In most cases, the first time you need to recruit is to add a support person to your business. This is not just a ‘step’ – it’s often a LEAP.

You’re probably looking for someone who can do either or all the following:

  • Things that you do well but can’t manage the volume any longer.  If yours is a garden maintenance business, for example, you’ll probably be looking for that extra pair of hands to mow lawns, trim edges etc, so you can get those jobs done on time and do more each week.
  • Things that you know need to be done to improve your business, but you either don’t have time to do or are not good at doing.  Think social media posts or following up lapsed clients, etc.
  • Tasks that simply take up a lot of time. Administration is being set aside and invoices are never going to be paid if they are not sent in the first place.

If you decide that you want an employee, rather than a contractor (good move – more discussion on this in another post), the discussion is likely to begin with “Full Time? Part Time? Casual?”.

I want to suggest that you go back one step and take a thorough look at the ROLE itself.  Do you need an employee in the first place? 

  • Managing your bookkeeping on excel spreadsheets? Let’s get you connected to a bookkeeper who can set you up on Xero, MYOB etc and Receiptbank or similar and – Hey Presto – that work that you thought would take 10 hours a week now takes 30 minutes.
  • Having someone answer your phone when you cannot is way better than a voicemail or, in some cases, a robotic “Your message will be sent as a text” response.  Having someone sit all day waiting for those calls is a very inefficient system.  Maybe we can outsource your phone answering services?

More discussion like this and you could well end up with an employee on a casual basis who can allow you to complete more work, rather than simply coping better with the workload that was getting you down. 

More work completed = more $$ INTO the business.

So, let’s start with an analysis of the role and your business needs, something that you won’t always get if you ask a recruiter to find you an employee for a specific role.

The starting point is a no obligation consultation and Discovery Session with Development Pathways.

Use our Contact Us link and let us help.