Hiring your first employee is a major milestone, and being prepared makes all the difference.
In this episode of Small Business Smarts, go through the essential steps every business owner should complete before making that first hire.
For more, visit ADP.com/SPARK
Victoria Jordan, founder of PureWork Studio
Are you ready to hire your first employee? No. Well, then this video is for you. I recently learned that you should prep for your first employee before you're even thinking about hiring.
Welcome to the first of three episodes dedicated to hiring your first employee. Laci Buzzelli from ADP helped me put together a list of what you should do to be ready for that first hire, even if it's far in the future. How are you doing, Lacey?
Laci Buzzelli, vice president and general manager of small business services, ADP
I'm good. Vicky. Thanks for having me.
Victoria Jordan
My pleasure. So happy to have you here. Tell me what I need to know about getting ready for my first hire.
Laci Buzzelli
Happy to. So, Vicky, I'm sure you know, but your employees are your greatest asset as a small business owner. And there's a lot to think through to ensure you're hiring a great candidate. It might feel like it's too soon, but you want to have a few things in place long before you even need that first employee. Because when you're ready, you're going to want to hire quickly.
So if you don't already have one, the first step would be to apply for a federal and state employer identification number, also known as an EIN. This will allow you to properly handle all of the payroll taxes. You also want to ensure that you educate yourself on federal, state, and even local taxes as it's your responsibility to withhold those taxes and pay them timely.
At the same time, you'll want to familiarize yourself with things like unemployment insurance as well as worker's compensation. Another piece that is really important when hiring employees is decide how you're going to track their hours. You'll want to learn the requirements for pay frequency in your industry. Also, the region that you live in that could require weekly, biweekly or semi monthly pay.
A huge piece of hiring an employee that you'll want to be prepared with is to prepare an employee handbook. This will include things like your workplace policies and should include wage and hour roles, how you're going to track their time, conduct expectations of your employees, and things like paid and unpaid leave. Also, if you have a physical space, you want to ensure that you have any required workplace posters and notices that are ready to be displayed.
That includes federal, state, and even sometimes local. So I know that's a lot, Vicki, but it's really important. And as I said at the beginning, your employees are greatest asset. So you want to make sure you're prepared ahead of time.
Victoria Jordan
Yeah. And you know, I think we've all been through a rushed or maybe not thorough onboarding process. So it feels like if I get through all of this in advance, then I won't have to rush when it's actually time to hire someone. And I can focus on who that person is going to be versus trying to prepare everything else.
Laci Buzzelli
That's exactly right. You want to make sure that you're focus when it's actually time to hire is on finding the right person that's going to fuel your small business and is the right employee for you.
Victoria Jordan
Thank you so much, Laci. This is great information for small business owners out there. For more tips on prepping for your first employee, check out ADP.com/Hiring101
