How Do I Get Over the Fear of Hiring a Full-Time Employee?

Before I hired my first employee, I was terrified. I was like “this is so scary, there’s no way I can do this.” I was worried about so many things, and I want to share my top three fears around hiring a full time employee, and how I got over them, because I knew I could not scale to six-figures without at least one full-time employee, and I was not about to let my fear hold me back from getting that coin!

Fear #1: Benefits - Although I knew I wanted to start my full time employee on a probationary period as a contractor, I knew that eventually I would need to provide benefits. I was scared to even think about navigating benefits because even navigating benefits at a typical 9-5 can be a pain so I didn’t even want to think about how I was supposed to figure benefits out for my employee as an entrepreneur. 

Then I learned about Health Reimbursement Accounts. Before this, I was thinking about the typical benefits for employees, where there’s an enrollment period and then you get a certain number of plans to choose from and I figured that was what I had to offer for my employee. And I'm like, "Oh my god, so I have to partner with an insurance company, how do I even find that?" I was just so overwhelmed by the details. 

As I began doing my research and learning in this area, I realized that you have to have at least two full-time employees, including yourself, and someone who's not your spouse working in your business in order to offer benefits through your company. If you don’t yet have that, you can offer the alternative of a Health Reimbursement Account. 

A Health Reimbursement Account is where your employee chooses whatever health plan they want, and then you as the employer reimburses them the cost of their plan. With this option, as the employer, you don't have to find all the options for your employee and this is particularly beneficial when you have employees that are working in different states than you (hello remote team!), because the employee chooses the plan and you offer a reimbursement every month. That reimbursement could be $100 or $500, it just depends on your employee’s needs and what you are willing to reimburse monthly. 

Fear #2: Payment Systems - Another thing I was overwhelmed by was the idea of needing a payment system in place that ensured certain tax deductions were taken out of the employee’s paycheck and sent to the proper place (things like Medicare, Social Security, etc.). I was like, "Oh my God, oh my God, that feels like a lot." 

Then I realized that I already had that system in place for myself because when you get to a certain point in your business, and you get to a certain revenue level, you are going to opt into what's called an S-Corp. Click here to read more about my experience with S-Corps! One of the requirements of being an S Corp is as the CEO, (even if you are the only person employed by your business) you have to put yourself on payroll, which means you have to pay for a payroll system that will deduct the money from your business bank account. The payroll system will then pay the taxes and deposit your check into whatever your personal account is that you have with the payroll system.

So as an employee, we just see our salary being dropped into our account every two weeks, but on the back end your gross salary is being pulled from an account that your employe has, then taken through a payment system that redistributes money for Social Security, Medicare, state and federal taxes and then deposits the remaining balance (net salary) into your personal account. 

When you get a payroll system in your business you're doing the same thing, and the payroll system is doing it all on the backend. Because I’m already an employee for my business and am being paid through a payment system that deducts everything I need, I actually already have the system I need fro another employee. 

There are plenty of different payroll systems (I use Gusto) and some will even manage time off for your employees and other things. Once I learned more about what my payment system could do, my feelings of overwhelm dissipated because the system did everything I needed for me and my employee. 

Fear #3: Employee Handbook - The last thing that was overwhelming for me was the idea of having to create an Employee Handbook. So of course I started Googling Employee handbook templates and reading articles about writing an employee handbook and I was like "Wait a minute," and to remind y’all, I'm a previous principal, "This is like the school handbook. I just need to go in and update it." 

And so, you don't write the school handbook from scratch. You pull a template or last year's handbook, and you go in and you make some edits, then you just have to update it every year. And when you’re writing your Employee Handbook you’ll want it reviewed by a lawyer and HR Specialist just to ensure you aren’t missing anything, but an Employee Handbook is just like a School Handbook y’all! 

So those are just a few of my top fears when it came to hiring a full time employee, and honestly, once I got more information I needed and did the research, I realized that this actually isn't that scary (it’s still a little scary though).

Here's the thing y’all, I brought someone full-time onto my team starting as a contractor for 90 days, just as a probationary period to see if we're a fit for each other. You like me, I like you, what's your work performance like? So we had a chance to basically preview each other and then at the end of the 90 days, we both felt like this was a pretty good thing, and we began the transition to making them a full time employee. 

And let me tell you, my first full time hire is killing it! And one of the experiences that I'm having, because it's the first time I've ever had anybody dedicated just to my business for 40 hours a week, is that my mind is blown with all of the things I no longer have to do, and all of the time and brain space I have for doing other things for my business. I literally shared a task with them in the morning on their Asana Board, and my plan was to talk about it at our check-in and they had completed the task before we even got to the check-in! I was like, "Oh my God, I love this, I love this, oh my God, this is so amazing." 

And for my school leaders, this is the difference between having a substitute and having a full-time teacher. And even for my teachers who may not have school leadership experience you understand this too. 

So I just name that to help you begin to start conceptualizing the idea that though the thought of hiring an employee may be scary, it is vital that you begin to do the mindset work of seeing a full-time employee as an option, because you are in a position to not only have your own consulting business and to grow it. But in order to get to multiple six figures and seven figures, which is totally possible, you are going to have to hire an employee, you are going to need someone 40 hours a week dedicated to your business.

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