Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on Supertalk 97.5. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur’s Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.
This best practice tip is brought to you by Phillip Harper, writer for Microsoft and PKF Texas.
In our last segment on the question of when to add staff, we reviewed 4 key areas that suggest a positive answer. But two other issues rise when you make that decision.
Full Time versus Temporary
Once the decision to hire is made, the question is whether to hire a full-time employee, a temporary worker or a subcontractor.
If the work is part of the core service of the company, it makes sense to hire [a full timer], Harper says. But if it’s more of a secondary thing, or not as important to the customer, it’s better to subcontract because you could reduce expenses.
In the case of entry-level support personnel, some companies use temps to cover short-term needs and then end up hiring them for full-time positions. The try before you buy scenario.
Competition with big businessesWhile it can be true that small companies have difficulty competing against major corporations in the area of benefits, workers interested in emerging businesses may have other areas of greater interest to them. Some folks may be looking for real world experience and the increasing pool of skilled workers on early retirements can add depth to your bench very quickly.