Adding to the Team: 4 Things That Help When Hiring
We’ve been growing our business (South Bend Code School) quite a bit over the last few years. With that growth we have had to add other members to our team. Overall, this is a pretty cool experience, but it has definitely come with some eye opening moments.
Here are four of the biggest lessons I have learned from hiring.
Payroll
Paying people is straight up scary. You now have to make sure you have enough cash in the bank to cover your people and the taxes that come with them. Employee taxes, employer taxes, FUTA and SUTA numbers, federal, state, withholding, social security, medicaid…It’s enough to make you want to poke your own eyes out.
Not only that, but you have to know the implications and differences between contractors, part time employees, and full time employees. It can be a headache to figure out when you are first growing because different employee types come with different liabilities.
Our secret weapon on the employee side is Gusto. This platform is the beez kneez. They take care of everything from tax filings to employee on boarding. It’s a huge time saver. Seriously, if you are about to hire people use this program.
On the business side, definitely talk with an accountant and an insurance agent about hiring first. They should be able to help guide you through what you need from a paperwork standpoint as a business in whatever state you are in.
Onboarding
After you get jump through all of the hoops at the payroll circus, you’ll have a new member of your team. They get to come and join the fun of the magical journey that is your business, and you get some help doing all of those things that overwhelm you on a daily basis. Yay!
But wait, hold the phone. How are they going to know what to do? Different projects have history and background that the person working on them needs to be aware of. A new team member needs to understand the systems and processes you have implemented and why they are there. Who is going to teach them all of those things?
You have to expect that bringing someone on is going to cost you time. You’ll take a dip in productivity in the short run in order to gain the benefit in the long run. Think of bringing on a new team member like pulling back a slingshot. It takes a little effort to pull backwards, but when you can let it go you’ll fire a rock at supersonic speeds right into your friend Timmy’s eye. Mission accomplished!
Meaningful Contributions
When you bring someone onto your team, you are usually doing so because you need the extra effort in order to experience additional growth. I have seen two different core mentalities when witnessing people hire for their teams.
Mentality 1: Hire this person to be systems focused and do work that frees you up to focus on other things. “I hired you to do ‘X’ and that is what I am paying you for”. This mentality is very transaction based.
Mentality 2: Hire this person to be a part of the team and provide insights and intelligence that you can’t because you aren’t as experienced or don’t have the time to focus on that area. “Welcome to the team. What do you think we should do?” This mentality is more contribution based.
Our team’s preference is mentality 2. When we hire we like to bring on smart individuals who can think constructively, creatively, and help us traverse the unknown a little bit better. Generally, the feedback we have gotten from this stance is very positive. People like to know that they are valued for their thoughts as well as their effort.
Sometimes, if you are contracting someone to do a repetitive job that requires manpower but takes time, mentality 1 is the route taken. However, if you go this route, don’t expect the person working to take a whole lot of meaning from their work. They are usually there to collect a paycheck. This type of motivation is valuable, but it doesn’t hold the same level of attachment.
The person you are hiring might take a different path to get to the same outcome.
When you make a new hire while your company is young, it is difficult to watch a process that you have done many times be taken over by someone new. They might have a different way of doing things or going about solving a problem, and you have to be okay with that. This can be considered an issue of micromanagement.
The best example I can think of is the first time I had to watch someone else present our business to a potential customer. When my team member gave the pitch it was not the way I would have given the pitch. I even remember fighting back an interjection to add to what they were saying. Luckily, I held it in and let things go. At the end of the day everything worked out all the same.
Just remember, sometimes it isn’t about the journey, it’s about the destination. If you both start at point A and you both get to point B (and no one dies along the way), call it a win.
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Alex Sejdinaj is a cofounder of South Bend Code School, GiveGrove, and Code Works. He loves building cool stuff that helps people.
