How to Hire Employees: An 8-Step Guide for Store Owners

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كاتب ذكاء اصطناعي

Hiring good talent is not an easy task. In fact, reports indicate that about seven out of ten employers are experiencing a talent shortage and hiring difficulties – the highest level reported by ManpowerGroup in the past 15 years.

However, hiring employees is essential for the success of your business. Having a talented team of store employees can help sell more products, improve productivity, and provide better customer service.

Step 1: Address Legal Matters

Before you begin the hiring process, we recommend reviewing a summary of the key laws from the Department of Labor. There are over 180 federal labor laws and regulations that you must adhere to in order to comply with federal and state governments. Here are some tips to help you prepare your business legally:

Obtain an Employer Identification Number

Before you hire anyone (and to set up payroll), you’ll need to obtain an Employer Identification Number (EIN) from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The EIN is used to report taxes and other information to state agencies and the IRS.

You can apply for an EIN on the U.S. government website, and that completes the first step!

Register with the Department of Labor

Some state and local governments require businesses to obtain identification numbers for tax purposes. Contact your local and state government official to find out if you need a tax identification number.

Depending on your Department of Labor, it may be wise to keep the following information handy:

  • Federal Employer Identification Number
  • Business structure
  • Company name
  • North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code
  • Number of permanent and temporary employees in your business, including the owner
  • Date of first employee paycheck (if possible)
  • Business email address
  • Main business address
  • Address where you want to send unemployment claims
  • Contact information for key individuals (which may include the owner, partners, LLC members, CEO, or company executives)

Organize Your Tax Forms

You are responsible for filing taxes and reports on behalf of your team as an employer, so it’s important to be aware of the various tax deadlines for small businesses that you will need to meet. You’ll want to keep the following information for each new employee you hire:

  • Full name
  • Start or end date of employment
  • Tax identification number (Social Security number or EIN)
  • Date of birth
  • Current address
  • Compensation details
  • I-9 form, to verify employment eligibility in the U.S. (this form must be completed by both the employee and employer)
  • W-4 form, to determine how much federal income tax should be withheld from the employee’s paycheck

Businesses must retain employment tax records for at least six years to support filing tax returns. Setting up a system to manage these forms helps you prepare tax returns and maintain business health over time.

The IRS also has a publication for employer taxes, which provides guidance on all federal tax filing requirements that may apply to your small business. You should also check with your state’s tax agency for any specific filing requirements related to employers.

Obtain Workers’ Compensation Insurance

Workers’ compensation insurance helps cover lost wages and medical expenses for your company if an employee is injured or becomes ill. This insurance can also include rehabilitation services and death benefits.

Most states require any company with one or more employees to carry workers’ compensation insurance. It’s an easy way to protect yourself and your business from unexpected accidents and business interruptions.

Workers’ compensation insurance varies from company to company. You can get a free online quote from companies like biBERK.

Step

Step 2: Decide Whether You Need Full-Time or Part-Time Employees

A full-time employee is someone who works between 30 and 40 hours a week. Part-time employees usually work less than 30 hours a week.

It is common for small business owners to question whether they should hire full-time or part-time employees. Many business owners use both as their business grows and the store needs more work. Hiring full-time and part-time employees has its advantages and disadvantages:

Full-time employees. Hiring full-time employees comes with many benefits such as better planning, increased productivity, and more loyal and committed employees, but the costs of benefits and issues with excess labor during quiet periods can affect your profits.

Part-time employees. You can start by hiring part-time employees to save costs, maintain flexibility, and ensure that additional staff are available only when needed (for example, during peak business periods). However, hiring part-time employees can lead to instability and a higher turnover rate, as well as having less experienced staff.

Overall, full-time employees provide schedule security and stability in managing work. They have a similar weekly schedule and an equal number of hours in each pay period, along with health benefits and vacation time. Part-time employees offer flexibility in staffing levels as they do not have guaranteed hours or benefits.

Step 3: Create a Job Description

If you want to attract qualified candidates to your job, you must create an appealing job description that summarizes the responsibilities and qualifications required for the open position.

With over 250 million jobs available on sites like Indeed, a great job description can help your job stand out. The goal is to provide enough information to keep candidates interested in your business, while remaining concise and easy to understand. An effective job description helps candidates determine if they are qualified for the role.

Make sure your job description includes:

  • Title: A short and specific job title that avoids confusing potential candidates – for example, for a store assistant, “Retail Store Assistant” is clearer than a clever job title that sounds like “Good Giddy.”
  • Summary: Start with a strong summary of the position you are hiring for and set the expectations you have for the job.
  • Company culture: An overview of your company culture, or the set of behaviors and practices a person can expect to find in your business. This is an important and often overlooked part of creating a job description. According to a survey by Indeed, 72% of job seekers say it is very or extremely important to see details about company culture.
  • Responsibilities: Outline the core duties of the role. Make sure this list is detailed but concise, highlighting the daily activities of the position and clarifying how the tasks will affect your business and your customers.
  • Requirements: You will also want to include a list of the hard and soft skills you are looking for in a successful employee. Include any required previous work experience or education, as well as skills like communication and problem-solving that are needed for the role.
  • Salary and benefits: Don’t leave candidates in the dark about their potential earnings. Qualified candidates will look for jobs that meet their financial needs. At a minimum, include a salary range and a list of the best perks and benefits to help candidates decide whether the job offer is right for them.

With Shopify POS, you can assign different roles and permissions and set limits on what store employees can do in your POS system without manager approval – such as changing a product price or applying a custom discount at checkout.

Take

Snow Peak’s outdoor lifestyle brand is taking a step forward with this idea. It includes a section in its retail assistant job advertisement that outlines the exact soft skills required for the role in its “This position may be a good fit if you are” section.

Snow Peak also adds “must-have” and “nice-to-have” lists to help candidates determine if they are qualified for the role. For example, the brand prefers employees who have experience using Shopify, working in the outdoor and retail industry, and understanding Japanese language and culture.

Try a free 3-day trial of Shopify POS to manage employee roles and permissions for your growing team!

Step 4: Finding Job Candidates

At this stage, you’re ready to hire an employee. This is great news! The next step is to find good candidates for the position. Here are five places where you can find the best talent for your role:

Job Boards

The first place to search for job candidates is a dedicated job board or website. When it comes to candidate preferences, 60% of job seekers use job boards compared to 50% who use word of mouth. So let’s take a look at some popular job boards:

  • Indeed. Posting a job on Indeed is fairly straightforward with this guide. It’s also free unless you choose to pay to sponsor your job post for increased visibility.
  • CareerBuilder. This site uses AI data to provide automated tips for your ideal candidate, but this comes at a cost starting from $219 per month (or $197 per month if paid annually) for one job position.
  • Glassdoor. Technically, Glassdoor is not a job board where you can directly post jobs on the site. But since it partners with Indeed, it’s worth creating a Glassdoor company profile to increase visibility and the social proof that comes with employee reviews. The basic account is free, but you can opt for paid features, like premium reviews, by contacting the sales team.
  • Monster. The Monster search platform – which ranks and matches candidates based on your criteria – can help you save time. It also shows you your best matches first. This option offers four-day free trials, but after that, prices start from $279 per month for one active job (and unlimited applications).
  • Snagajob. This site specializes in hiring hourly workers and has over six million users searching the site each month. Like other job board sites, it uses “matching technology” to help you quickly find the right candidates. It’s cheaper than many other sites – at $89 per month per post, it offers many of the same features as pricier services.

Social Media

Searching for candidates through social media can save time and money (given the costs of many of the job boards mentioned above). In fact, a survey by the Job Description Library showed that 79% of job seekers used social media in their search last year.

Let’s take a look at each major social media platform from the perspective of a hiring manager:

TikTok

The video-sharing platform TikTok has become the go-to place to find millennial employees, many of whom work part-time. With an increase in job-related and professional content on TikTok, the platform launched “TikTok Resumes,” a program designed to expand TikTok as a primary hiring channel and job discovery.

TikTok partnered with well-known employers like Chipotle, Target, Alo Yoga, and Shopify, inviting job seekers to apply with a TikTok video. All candidates can be found through a custom hashtag #tiktokresumes. Large and small companies can browse the hashtag channel and watch applicants showcase their skills through creative and entertaining videos.

LinkedIn

On

Although it has been considered in the previous category of job boards, LinkedIn is a “professional social network.” According to its data, someone is hired through LinkedIn every eight seconds.

It is one of the favorite places for candidates to showcase their experiences and connect with other professionals and hiring managers alike.

Twitter

As the most commonly used application by job seekers (at 57%), Twitter is hard to ignore, especially if you are looking to hire freelancers, contractors, or gig workers. The most common way to attract talent through Twitter is to write a good tweet and link it to a job listing on your company’s website.

However, if your company is a small or startup business, many business owners will post about their job openings and ask potential candidates to send a direct message. Facebook

As the social media platform with the largest number of active users monthly (over 2.9 billion users), and the largest percentage of them being between 18 and 44 years old, it also makes sense to look at Facebook for finding job candidates.

On Facebook, you can create job posts through your business page, and if you want, you can promote the job listing as an ad.

However, another effective way to recruit through Facebook is to search for Facebook groups or job search groups within your industry and post your job openings in those groups.

Each social media platform will contain different types of active users, so make sure to research and compare the type of employee you want with the pool of candidates available on social media.

Your own network

Searching within your personal and work networks is an effective way to start looking for job candidates.

We previously mentioned that 50% of job seekers use the spoken word to find their ideal job, so in many cases, the ideal candidate might be hiding in plain sight. After all, you work in your industry, and you are very likely to know others who work in it too.

Although this is the least formal way to search for candidates, there are two main steps you can take as a starting point:

  • Ask your personal network (friends and family). There is common advice out there against hiring friends or family members, but that doesn’t mean you can’t ask them if they know anyone looking for a job. This type of warm referral can significantly reduce hiring time (and costs). If you can’t find any referrals this way, you can always turn to your personal social media account and ask for help from your wider network.
  • Ask current employees. If your company is large enough (you already have a few or more employees), you can ask them to look for candidates in their networks. The same logic follows that, since they are working in your industry, they are very likely to know others working in it as well.

If you also do not receive many referrals this way, do what many companies do and offer bonuses or other incentives (like a contest) to find qualified candidates to fill your position.

Employees

One of the most common ways for business owners to find new candidates is to hire specialized recruiters or recruitment agencies.

This method has several advantages, and here are some of them:

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