So your small home business is starting to take off and you’re noticing some major changes in how you operate. Perhaps you’re struggling to deal with all of the customer's queries you’re getting, or maybe you’re asking friends and family members to help out occasionally because there’s just so much to do. Maybe there’s something you want to achieve like building a website or creating more content, but you just don’t have enough time or the skills to do it in a reasonable timeframe. If that’s the case, then why not consider hiring an employee?

Most people know they’re ready to hire an employee when they’re swamped with things that make it hard to grow their business. For instance, they might be spending too much time on accounting because they’re not accustomed to dealing with their books. Perhaps they’ve discovered a new audience and a strong source of revenue, but they simply don’t have the skills or time to take advantage of it. These are the sorts of situations that people can get into when they’re growing their business and it can really slam the brakes on your growth.

But with that said, hiring your very first employee can be difficult. There’s a bit of awkwardness that comes with recruiting a new team member, and it can be hard for people that don’t have the best social skills. So here’s a little guide on how you can simplify the process of hiring your first employee and how you can make things a bit more comfortable.

Before you start posting recruitment messages on job boards or reaching out to your followers on social media, it’s a good idea to understand exactly what type of employee you’re looking for before you get started. This is because you want to ensure that you can find the right person for the job, and it also helps you determine the type of personality that you’re looking for as well. Remember that this is going to be one of the very first team members you hire, so it’s worth setting a good first impression and ensuring that their personality and attitude match what you’re looking for.

Of all the different employee types that can be defined, it’s worth trying to pinpoint exactly the type of person you’re looking for so that you can find someone who is easy to work with. Don’t underestimate the power of office culture and strong teamwork. Once you have your interview with this hand-picked recruit, you should feel much more comfortable around them and they should immediately connect with your personality and your business’s goals.

Hiring an employee is something you do for the long term. It’s not something you do just because you need someone to temporarily help you with your business. As such, you need to have a long-term plan for those employees and you need to offer them opportunities to grow. If you don’t see that role being relevant in a few months’ time, then you should adjust your expectations of the role you’re looking for.

As such, you need to make sure that the job description clearly states what you’re looking for, what they can expect, and also how the role can develop over time. After all, this is going to be your very first employee so it’s extremely important that you give them plenty of opportunities to become a senior manager in the future, or even take on more responsibilities so that they’re performing more duties for your company. Since they’ll have a very deep understanding of your business in a few months’ time, you can trust them with many of the senior positions that would typically be required of a business.

Hiring your first employee is a fantastic way to take your side hustle to the next level, but you really need to consider if you can afford it. Most people think that it’s just about paying a salary, but there are also benefits to consider and you may also need to equip your new staff member with the tools they need to get their job done. This could include new machines, a computer, or even specialized tools.

If you don’t think you can afford a new staff member then there is another option; hiring remotely. This means hiring someone to work from home for your company. This is a great option if you don’t need their services every single day because it means you can pay them for the work they’re doing. This makes it a great part-time job for them, and it also makes it a lot cheaper for you to hire new staff members without a huge investment. This can be a great option for saving money, but it also leads to more flexibility which is always appreciated. So if you’re looking to save money when hiring new staff members, consider hiring remotely or even using freelancers instead.

There’s no single accepted way to find, recruit, and then interview employees. Every business does it a little differently and these days, there are plenty of quirky startups and promising small businesses that use very different styles of recruiting.

For example, some businesses like to use social media as a way to reach out to potential talent. This is much easier when you’ve got a large following on platforms like Twitter and Instagram as it means you can reach out to your immediate audience, but also the followers of your audience as well. This means you can quickly and easily get the message out there that you’re recruiting. It might not always yield good results, but at least you’re reaching people that have some relation to your business.

You should also think about the qualifications of the employee that you’re looking for. Not everyone cares about academic qualifications these days and many employers are looking for talented individuals that can display their skills through a portfolio or something similar. If you decide to go this route, then you can always put a little message in your job post stating that you’re more interested in someone’s experience and practical skills as opposed to their qualifications.

Your first employee is probably going to be someone that saw your job and thought it’d be a good opportunity to gain experience. After all, if people are given the opportunity, they’d much prefer to work a stable job with a reputable company as opposed to a small startup that just hired its first member of staff. You shouldn’t have anything against people that do this either; everyone would want the security of a stable job.

Embrace the fact that your new employee is probably going to leave at some point because this is going to happen in the future as well. Talented members of staff are going to leave for bigger companies in order to make better use of their skills, and younger members of staff are likely going to leave for a bigger company once they’ve gathered all the experience they can. This is just how businesses work and the most you can do is try to hold onto those employees by having a friendly atmosphere, opportunities for growth, and also a strong company message that they can resonate with.