Hiring a new employee involves risk, but it’s almost always a risk you have to take. You hope your choice will turn out to be a good hire, but there’s always the chance it won’t work out. Is there a way that, as a small-business owner, you can help tip the scales in your favor? Are there steps you can take to help ensure your next hire will be a good one? The answer is yes, and while you may have your own strategy for hiring new employees, learning others’ tricks of the trade just gives you more tools and ideas to work with.
1. Create the Job Description Carefully
How many times have you read a seriously nebulous job description — one that made you scratch your head and wonder what the job even entailed? Don’t let that be you. If you do, you will undoubtedly get unqualified candidates, and that means hours of time spent weeding through resumes that aren’t good matches for the job.
Before you even start to write the job description, make sure that you give enough thought to exactly what you want your new employee to do. After all, it’s hard to describe something if you don’t understand it yourself. Make some notes — not necessarily for publication — about how the position could change over time, with more responsibilities being added.
2. Don’t Rely Solely on Websites — Use Your Personal Network
Chances are, you are looking to hire someone locally. Even though many people work from home now, most employers still want to meet employees in the flesh and see them in the office from time to time. For that reason, it’s easy to use your own business and social networks to look for a new hire. Post about your search for a new employee on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and any other social media sites you use. Someone you know might know someone who’s looking for work.
Hiring someone this way is arguably better than hiring a seemingly better-qualified candidate you don’t know. That’s because with a complete stranger, you may find out later that they embellished their qualifications, they get along poorly with others, they call in sick a lot or they have weird, annoying habits such as taking all their calls on speaker, telling everyone in the office about the latest TV show they are watching or burning the microwave popcorn every day.
With someone you know peripherally, it’s harder to keep secrets — and harder to ghost the employer when they decide they don’t like the job or get a better offer.
3. Do Your Due Diligence
Regardless of whether you know a job candidate personally, you know them through some degree of separation or they are a complete stranger to you, there is no excuse for not checking out their story. Are they really who they say they are? Have they really earned the degrees they said they did? Do they have the experience they say they have? If you don’t think this is important, just take a look at what happened with Rep. George Santos (if that is indeed his name). His election wasn’t just a debacle, it was a public disgrace. Even if your bad hires aren’t public disgraces, they can still be expensive, disappointing and detrimental to business.
Before you hire anyone, call their previous employers to make sure they really worked there and performed the duties they claim to have performed. Do a criminal background check to help determine if they are trustworthy or what the odds are that they will abandon their position to return to jail if they are on probation. Make sure their story checks out.
4. Offer Employee Benefits
Small businesses are notorious for skimping on benefits. They’re new, they’re small, they need the extra cash to grow their business. We’re not saying it’s not understandable; we’re saying it’s not desirable. Given a choice, an employee will go with the employer that offers them more, whether that’s more compensation, more vacation time, more flexibility or more of something else they want.
Sponsoring a 401(k) plan for your employees is one way to attract (and keep) top talent. People of every age have concerns about being able to afford retirement. If you can help employees assuage these concerns by offering a 401(k) plan, you’ll be ahead of the competition that doesn’t.
The major stumbling block for small businesses and 401(k) plans has been the hassle and expense of setting up and launching the program. 401GO has addressed these pain points and made sponsoring a 401(k) plan fast, easy and cost-efficient. While most 401(k) plans take weeks to get up and running, you can start yours with us in as little as 15 minutes. We also provide payroll integration, so once you set your plan up, you hardly ever have to think about it again.
Fees are lower as well. Our fintech solutions make it possible for you to operate your plan for as little as $9 per employee per month — significantly less than with large banks and investment firms.
If you’re ready to be the kind of small business that attracts the kind of employees you want, contact 401GO today. We can help you set up a 401(k) plan your employees will value.
