Entrepreneur's Startups Fall/Winter 2020

To hire or not to hire? That is the question in the mind of the new entrepreneur. You see, hiring even one employee changes everything. Suddenly, you need payroll procedures, rules regarding hours, and a policy for vacation pay. You’re hit with a multitude of legal requirements and management duties you’d never have to deal with if you worked solo. To decide whether you need employees, take a closer look at your ultimate goals. Do you want to create the next Starbucks, or do you simply want to work on your own terms without a boss looking over your shoulder? If your goals are modest, then adding a staff may not be the best solution for you. If you do need employees, there are plenty of ways to meet your staffing needs—without…

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 makes it illegal for employers with 15 or more employees to refuse to hire qualified people with disabilities if making “reasonable accommodations” would enable the person to carry out the duties of the job. That could mean making physical changes to the workplace or reassigning certain responsibilities. While the law is unclear on exactly how far an employer must go to accommodate a person with disabilities, what is clear is that it’s the applicant’s responsibility to tell the employer about the disability. Employers are not allowed to ask whether an applicant has a disability or a history of health problems. However, after the applicant has been given a written or verbal explanation of the job duties, you may then ask whether they can…

Use the internet to help you find employees: CAREERBUILDER (careerbuilder.com) offers advice, webinars, leadership development, and hiring solutions to employers and job recruiters. MONSTER (monster.com) helps you screen résumés so you can find the right candidate quickly. INDEED (indeed.com) and ZIPRECRUITER (ziprecruiter.com) give you more exposure to job seekers; the former is the top jobs site by traffic and the latter will target candidates in its résumé bank that fit your job description. LINKEDIN (linkedin.com) is increasingly the place where employers go to search for and recruit professional employees. Two reasons for the rising popularity: You can search profiles to find strong fits, and you can reach out yourself. WANT MORE HOW-TO ADVICE? TAKE OUR COMPREHENSIVE “START YOUR OWN BUSINESS” ONLINE COURSE AT ENTREPRENEUR.COM/SYOB.…

Fiona McDougall never thought she’d hire an apprentice. The practice was common in her native Australia, but as a principal at the marketing company OneWorld Communications in San Francisco, she had no time. Plus, here in the U.S., the concept of it seemed like it was for…electricians? Plumbers? Certainly not her. But in 2017, she was invited to an unusual roundtable series with other local businesspeople. It was organized by the city of San Francisco to help them develop an apprenticeship program—which is to say, paying a potential employee to work part-time while also providing on-the-job training and education. McDougall came away thinking it could work for her. Small businesses have limited resources,” she says. “You wear many hats, and we expect people to be specialized but nimble and resourceful.” So why…

Q: I have a great team, but I’m worried about people leaving. How can I incentivize them to stick around? —Tom, Austin, Texas ENTREPRENEURS know how to make customers happy: We learn their needs and then create products and services to match. But too often, we don’t do the same thing with our employees. We make incorrect assumptions about what workers value—and, in the process, overlook what will give them long-term stability It’s based on good intentions, but the delivery is bad. For example, some employers offer profit-sharing incentives. People like more money, right? But in the U.K., when researchers surveyed more than 13,000 employees across nearly 1,300 workplaces, these profit-sharing incentives got mostly bad reviews. Why? Because profit sharing is based on the company’s overall performance. Employees don’t feel rewarded for their…

In some way, every company today is a tech company. No matter the industry you’re in, you’ll likely be hiring developers, engineers, and data scientists—and chances are, it’s becoming harder and harder to find those people. In 2019, it took companies an average of 66 days to fill tech roles. Three years earlier, it happened faster—just 55 days. (That’s according to a report from iCIMS, an employment recruitment software company.) What changed? Competition, rising salary expectations, and even immigration constraints. But now you’re in luck. While the current global climate poses many challenges for startups, it has also created a bigger, better pool of tech job candidates to pull from. Tens of millions of jobs have been affected over the past few months—AT&T laid off 3,400 people in June and 54 more…