How I Built A Successful Workforce For My Small Business

1. Job Description
   

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   First of all, analyze and define what is the function you need to cover with a new employee, write down the job description for each post you need to hire someone to help you. What are the skills you expect the candidate for recruiting should have? How much you are willing to pay the person that will take the job.

   Once you wrote the job description for the post, you are looking to assign the new worker and start seeing possible candidates begin to archive the information about each one of the applicants.  Build a comparison table where you can see each candidate’s level of strengths, weaknesses, expectations, and interview notes. This information will help you to pick the best one of the applicants.

2. Are you going to do the recruiting yourself or get outside experts?
   

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   To know the time and effort you will need for the hiring  of each new worker here are all the tasks involved, including:

   • Job description planning and writing
   • Advertising the job vacancy (online and offline)
   • Get in touch with prospective candidates
   • Tell about the job and your company
   • Interviewing and studying about the applicants
   • Sending and communicate You have to see if you have that much time to manage the recruiting or let someone of your staff doing it. You may outsource it.
3. How to get an Employer Identification Number
   

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   You will need to create your Employer Identification Number (EIN) with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), or as it is called too Employer Tax ID, Form SS-4 is the one you need for the application of your EIN.Form SS-4

   

   The employer’s ID is the ID you have to use once you send the money you withheld while paying the salaries of your employees. Any documentation related to the employees and your business salary and taxes should have this ID. You can apply for an EIN online.

4. Tax records 
   

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   Under the law, the tax records should be kept for four years. As it is an essential demand by the law, you need to have the files in a safe place. It is better to have this record in two areas. The cloud and a physical backup can be done by good accounting software or even on Google Drive.

   Use your accounting software to track your deductible expenses in real-time and save taxes by reporting those costs from your income before paying taxes.

5. Keep an eye on withholding taxes
   

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   Every time that you pay your employee, you deposit the money that you withheld, to the IRS, at the end of the year the IRS will use your report on your employee’s tax withholding and calculate the total earned at this tax-year and check what is the balance between the withheld money and the real tax that this employee has to pay after the deduction of the costs the employee is entitled to have.

   These forms must be completed:

   • W-4 form

Employee’s Withholding Allowance Certificate Whether you’re entitled to claim a certain number of allowances or exemption from withholding is subject to review by the IRS. Your employer may be required to send a copy of this form to the IRS.

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Once you had recruited a new employee, you must fill the W-4 Form. The W-4 will be the base for the withholdings that you need to withhold from the wages of the employee.

1. • W-2 form

As an employer, you have to report using the  W-2 Form, your employee’s income to the IRS, and the employee the salary the employee had. The report includes taxable income, retirement contributions, and benefits. The different states have different forms, make sure to report the right one to the corresponding state.

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6. Remember Tax year’s key dates and tasks

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Below are the IRS-related dates and tasks you need to now:

• By 31 January
  W-2 has to be sent to the IRS.  It includes the State tax too.
• By the end of February
  A copy Of the completed W-2 sent to the Social Security Administration. This information is needed to calculate each employee’s wages for the previous year.
• You have only three days of hiring to send an Employee Eligibility Verification form (I-9) Keep a copy archived for three years.
•  After hiring a new employee, you have 20 days
  to contact the state’s New Hire Reporting Program.

Your state will match the new hire reports against the public records making ensure the public assistance – like, welfare, food stamps, and Medicaid.

• For  the calendar year, you have to file an IRS Form 940 – also called an Employer’s Annual Federal Unemployment (FUTA) Tax Return – in these cases:
  • When you paid the salary of $1,500 or more in a quarter, or
  • An employee worked for your company in any 20 or more weeks of the year.

  Funds from the FUTA tax are from where the state pays unemployment compensation to workers who lose their employment.

You can use the IRS  handy online calendar for businesses as reminders.

7. Obtaining and displaying posters about employee rights and safety

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Under state and federal law, all employees have certain fundamental rights.

Many employees, mostly young new workers, may not understand their rights or be aware of them.

You are required to display posters about employees’ rights in the workplace publicly.

You can read more about the Department of Labor’s workplace poster requirements for small businesses and also download the posters you are required to hang on the wall of your workplace.

8. Obtain workers’ compensation insurance

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All companies are required to have Workers’ compensation insurance is required from all businesses. You can obtain it by:

• With a private commercial provider.
• Via self-insurance. In the case that you choose to set aside funds from your company to cover compensation payments to your employees.
• Your state’s Workers.’ Compensation Insurance program. Read more about these programs at the Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs (OWCP) within the Department of Labor.

The OWCP administers four major disability compensation programs that provide wage replacement benefits, medical treatment, vocational rehabilitation and other benefits to certain workers or their dependents who experience work-related injury or occupational disease.

Insurance is essential, do not neglect it, you can lose your business if something big happens. Look for cover from any case of an accident.

9. Set up a payroll system

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You have a few options for managing payroll:

• Doing it yourself.
• Outsourcing accountant or bookkeeper.

There is accounting software that can manage the payroll with not too many complications and need too much training.

Look for software that  can do the following:

• Simple to stay compliant
• Can make the list of paychecks for your employees
• Produce the reports to the (IRS).

Read this checklist for setting up small business payroll if you’d like to know more about how to set up the perfect system for your business.

10. Keep the records of each employee

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Keep an updated file of each employee’s records. You need all the details for the payroll. What was agreed on salary, The deductions the worker is entitled?

You may need the information for the union/representative.

An employee’s file should include the following :

• Full name, The address and other contact details
• Emergency contacts information
• An employment contract (full-time or part-time)
• Tax information
• Payment methods and the data as a bank account.
• More employees’ valuable information.

Keep these details and back it up. You can use any of the backup services like Google Drive. You have to keep these records for at list seven years.

11. Make it easy for your employees to access all your cloud programs

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Communication with your staff in one of the main factors of success. Please take advantage of the Internet, get an online space where your employees could inter and read and update themselves with the company’s policies, training manuals, and procedures. You can use one of those options  OneLogin, Okta, or Google for Work.

You better set yourself as an administrator of the site where you keep the information and let your staff sign in as the level you want them to see and update the information when you need it.

1. Show clearly your goals and your expectations.

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When you think of starting a business, you have to know what is your goals and what you expect from the business. It is essential to make your staff know their goals in the company and what you expect from each one of them. The same is from the employee’s side. You have to know what are their goals and expectations form your working place.

The right way to teat your people is by creating a professional relationship based on mutual trust, respect, and honesty.  People come to work not only because they need the money, but there is also a need to be respected for the right job with attention and money.  A right word and recognition of their efforts will do some time even more than a juicy paycheck.