After some advice for anyone that employes staff.
Been running 2 years, fuly booked and turning down big jobds daily because I havent got enough hours in the day! .. Im considering employing someone but it seems like a bit of a minefield so just have a feq questions:
1) Is it best to fully employ someone, have a zero hour contract or get someone self employed to invoice you?
2) what things would i actually need to put in place employing someone, pension? employers insurance? salary? Anything else?
3) What do you do if your quieter over the winter monrhts? (At the moment ive got alot of year round gardens so shouldnt be a problem, but things can always change and i'd still have someone to pay)
So any advice from someone whos gone from a sole trader or worked alone, to taking someone or several people on would be appreciated.
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I don't know why I'm replying as I don't tick any of your boxes but............I am far too busy myself but employing someone is about the last thing I would do. Number one problem is getting anyone who is any good and can be trusted. If they can work alongside you perhaps that's different, you can keep an eye and train them up. A lot depends on the sort of work you do or want to do. I think if I was looking for a candidate I'd go and check out staff in garden centres. Some of them are knowledgeable, might be up for it and fairly poorly paid.
Having help now and then as required would be great but you'd be very lucky to get that arrangement. Worth trying to build up local contacts. Zero hours contract to me is at least borderline immoral. Someone near me ran a business organising quite a few gardeners. I think they would have all been self-employed and on a more-or-less part-time basis depending on their circumstances (for example mum's with school age children). That worked well I think.
Pension, insurance, holiday pay, ppe the list goes on. If you enjoy or don't mind the red tape then fair enough, but it's all more time, or money if an accountant helps.
I'd say you need to have a good fund behind you to cover all eventualities.
I think the biggest thing is that you need to be charging yourself and any employee out at serious rates. If you're doing that already then good for you. If not, you need to get that sorted first or you'll get nothing but headache.
Good luck to you but I would think long and hard. It can be done, maybe someone will come along and tell you how. Just not me.I think if I employed it would have to be a family member and I hope my nieces are not reading this.
I agree with John Jones post he makes some good balanced points .
The government guideline is the blueprint to follow regarding employment law Tax , n.i , pensions etc but they can't choose your staff or customers so its up to you to make good judgements to make it work .
possibly sit down with an accountant to assess the viability and reality first .
We certainly have to respond to the demand when the phone keeps ringing and i have asked the same question on here and some manage to convert that opportunity into a thriving business providing employment and giving great service to their customers but others experience set backs so it seems like a personal journey in many ways but following a similar structure and depending on who you meet along the way .
Will employing someone increase your profits or simply ease your work load and you end up breaking even with more paperwork and responsibility ?
Will an employee contribute a skill which will be an asset to your business ?
Questions i have asked myself when thinking about this and currently receiving on average Four calls a day which mostly go to answerphone seeming like a waste of opportunity but i reckon i would need to employ ar least Two experienced gardeners and pay them a good living wage just to satisfy that demand which is based on the unknown because very few of those enquiries might not want to pay what i need to charge .
On the other hand if you are managing to tap into a good stream of viable work you really should be talking to an accountant and HMRC .
You may also find some better constructive advice than mine in the Bog .
Good Luck ..
I would counter some of those points ( .... and have in similar posts )
There's always one big assumption made by people who haven't / don't employ staff make and that is you have to charge more - you don't. You have capacity for more work and your fixed overheads & assets are spread over more people thus easier to recover costs - so your own internal charge out rate goes down and thus you work out cheaper.
You can then chose to quote cheaper (to win work) or make profit (.... no brainer ?),
The largest issue to overcome is personality traits and ability/skill to deal with employing "staff'' - Me ?, I enjoy it.
But there's clearly a bit of Business 101 needed first......
............. With the bigger turnover, don't you then have to start charging customers VAT which adds 20% to your charges? There's also the risk that when you've got your employee nicely trained up, he soon realises the customer is paying you £25 for an hours work and he's only getting a tenner for doing the same thing so he abandons you and nicks the customer while he's at it!!:)
Wow ! Proves my point. A classic example 🤷♂️
I plan to train my son up, get him helping on certain jobs during the school summer holidays. To motivate and manage him I shall be fine tuning my personality to become a hybrid of David Brent and a horticultural Basil Fawlty
Will you have to plug him in and charge him up regularly or do you have a load of spares ones in the truck 😬 ?
yes Battery Boy has plenty of spares to keep his energy levels high. His mum is a strimmer wearing a dress
Taking on one person is different to employing a team. I did not say you had to charge more, I said or implied you have to be charging enough to make it work. A lot depends on the kind of work you do. Maintaining carparks/ commercial premises; domestic mow and blow or hedgecutting; detailed planting/design or high end maintenance. One size isn't going to fit them all.
Personality traits? I've run gangs of men on high pressure railway jobs. No problem there. But I'm not interested in empire building on even a small scale. So ok you probably do have a point.
Business 101? Well go on then - give the original poster some constructive advice. Like me and John F tried to.
I did, and it's fundementally the same. You need to know your costs and internal charging rate to ensure you can recover them. We see the same 'assumptions' on multiple posts, that employing 1 or more people means to you have to up your charges (maybe excepting VAT impact).
Managing Teams is different to employing Teams, but both can be needed and rewarding.
There are listed several types who take the self employment route;
- Finding a "vocation"
- Redundancy forced
- Career change/pace of life change
- 'Simplier life'
- Anti establishment (ie those that don't want to work for anyone or had a bad employment experience)
- To build a business (which may or may not employ)
.. and others ?
See links at bottom of Forum
For further business advice? There's plenty here on LJN in previous posts and in The BOG.
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