4 Hiring Mistakes Small Businesses Commit

Are You Building Your Team Effectively?

The employees you hired today will determine your success tomorrow. Here are a few suggestions from Precise Payroll, based on our experience as an HR firm.

1. Not conducting pre-employment screenings. This can hurt your company in a number of ways. For example, it could cause you to hire someone who doesn’t have experience that they claim to have. (Studies have shown that lying on resumes is a disturbingly common practice.) Failing to conduct pre-employment screenings can also cause you to hire someone who is lying about their drug use or their criminal past — and even though many businesses do pride themselves on giving hard-working individuals a second chance in life, most pragmatic leaders also understand that such second chances require a bit of honesty and transparency from the would-be employees.

2. Not documenting the hiring process. This makes your hiring process too subjective — and subjectivity is the enemy of consistent success. You might, for example, hire less productive job candidates because you have no standard method of evaluation. Moreover, in the event that your company is sued for improper hiring practices, concrete documentation of why you make the choices that you make is your most important line of defense in court.

3. Dedicating insufficient time and resources to training and on-boarding. New employees should be thoroughly educated on their responsibilities, and they should be integrated into the professional community so that they know who to turn to for answers should they be left with questions. Failing to achieve this results in low productivity, high turnover, and increased risk of workplace accidents.

4. Failing to meet your tax obligations when hiring a new employee. Collecting an I9, and paying payroll taxes upon the first paycheck are two of the most common examples of this. Failure to complete these tasks oftentimes results in legal penalties or even punitive action against your business — so if you feel unsure of your legal payroll obligations, we encourage you to get in touch with Precise Payroll today!