Understanding how to hire employees is essential for anyone who manages a growing business, including what needs to happen before and after making the hire. This will help your business stay compliant, as well as creating a positive impression with the new hires. Although you can personalize the hiring process to reflect your company’s core values, each organization follows roughly the same steps to find, hire, and onboard new employees.
Before You Hire Employees
Identify the types of employees your business needs
Regardless of the business’ size, the search for new hires should always begin with evaluating what their roles should include. Apart from identifying the positions or departments that need additional personnel, it can be helpful to do the following:
- Decide which type of employee would fulfill each role best – part-time, full-time, seasonal, etc.
- Complete a cost/benefit analysis, comparing the costs of hiring, training, running payroll, providing benefits, etc. against the projected value each new employee could provide.
- Compare the analysis with your initial hiring goals, and make adjustments as necessary.
Outline roles and required qualifications
Next, you can zoom in on the details by defining the responsibilities of each role, as well as the qualifications that your ideal candidates would have. Responsibilities could include daily, weekly, or monthly assignments, ongoing tasks, or performance-based goals. When outlining a candidate’s qualifications, it’s best to differentiate between the ones that are required, and the ones that are beneficial but not essential. Depending on the role that each new hire will be filling, you might ask for a certain amount of experience, specific training or certifications, or characteristics like being a good communicator. When you’re writing job descriptions, you can use this information to help you find the most qualified candidates.
Be proactive about compliance
If you already have adequate payroll and HR processes in place, that will often be enough to stay compliant as you hire more employees. However, this isn’t always the case. Labor laws are highly complex, and hiring employees could change your eligibility for various regulations. For example, if hiring someone puts an organization over the threshold of 50 employees, they would need to comply with legislation like the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and others. Compliance with additional labor laws often requires changes to payroll and HR, but fortunately, adjustments can be made beforehand for a much smoother transition.
Hiring Employees as a Small Business Owner
Step one: interview potential candidates
A key part of knowing how to hire employees for small business ventures is figuring out the best way to interview new hires. Unlike most large companies, small businesses don’t necessarily have an interview process in place. The good news? Interviewing potential candidates is pretty intuitive. It’s recommended to focus on how well candidates match the requirements listed in the job description, as well as any other relevant qualifications they may have. This is a great opportunity to discuss each applicant’s availability and expectations, ask about their approach to problem-solving, have them complete a skill assessment, or anything else that could lead you to the best candidate for each job. Keep in mind that employers should avoid asking about protected characteristics, such as marital or family status, age, race, sexual orientation, disability, or religious beliefs.
Step two: conduct background checks
Background checks can be done before or after extending a formal job offer, or not at all, according to the employer’s preference. Doing background checks for multiple candidates can be useful for narrowing down the list of applicants, but it’s also more expensive than waiting until the best candidate has been selected. Regardless of when background checks are done, they should comply with federal and state regulations. State background check laws can vary widely, but federal background check laws apply to the majority of organizations. These laws require employers to:
- Notify applicants in writing beforehand.
- Obtain written authorization from each applicant
- Avoid using the results to discriminate against potential candidates.
- Comply with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), and any other applicable federal, state, or local laws.
Step three: onboard selected candidates
This is another part of the hiring process that can be tailored to fit each company’s requirements. At minimum, onboarding new employees should include having them complete paperwork that’s required by law, such as Form I-9 and Form W-4. However, the onboarding suggestions below can be instrumental in supporting new employees. If you want to help new hires land on their feet, here are some options for building a robust onboarding plan:
- Introduce them to the people they’ll be working with.
- Have logins, software, and equipment ready for each employee to use.
- Explain available benefits and advancement opportunities.
- Help them get acquainted with the company’s policies, values, and mission.
- Outline training programs, and provide support throughout.
- Establish goals for the first 90 days.
- Put them in contact with a supervisor or co-worker who can answer questions during the initial adjustment period.
What to Do After Hiring an Employee
Report the hire to the state employment agency
According to federal law, employers must report all new hires to the applicable state employment agency. Most states require this report to be filed within 20 days of hiring, but some states (including Georgia) set a different deadline. Regardless of the time frame, each report should include specific data:
- Hire date
- Name of employee
- Address of employee
- Social Security Number
- Name of employer
- Address of employer
- Federal Employer Identification Number (FEIN)
For anyone wanting to know how to hire international employees, there are limited cases in which an international employee can work without an SSN. However, federal and state regulations still apply, so it’s recommended to hire someone only if they have an SSN, or will be able to get one within a reasonable time frame.
Processing Payroll and HR as a Small Business
Knowing how to hire employees is important – and so is knowing how this can affect payroll and HR. Small businesses don’t always have the necessary resources for adjusting to bigger workloads or additional legal requirements, raising both stress levels and the risk of noncompliance. Our payroll and HR services can be customized for your company’s needs, including automated tax filing, streamlined payroll, strengthened compliance, and much more. Whether you just want to upgrade your software, or you’d like our qualified experts to administer payroll and HR on your behalf, we’re ready and waiting to support the growth of your business.
