There are times when a home business gets overwhelming, especially since you have to do all of the tasks yourself. There have been three times when I had to hire part time help in my home in order to get the work done.
This is a big expense, especially when you want to provide a decent hourly wage to your employee. But there are a lot of special concerns in letting someone into your home as opposed to into a brick and mortar business. I solved that each time by hiring people that I already knew.
Hiring a friend or acquaintance had the potential to cause trouble, to ruin friendships or cause discomfort, but it never did. By having a friend work for me, I had someone that I already trusted and that I was not afraid to have in the house around the kids. It also meant that they would not be trying to cheat me in the number of hours worked. Each time it worked out quite nicely, and it ended up also being a way to help out friends when they needed it.
When thinking about hiring a friend to help out in a home biz, think about the mothers you know who have some free hours during the day. I knew plenty of mothers with kids in school and had mentioned that they were thinking about finding part time work. I filed that information away and was able to use it when the time was right. Part time work helped me immensely, and it helped them too. Stay at home mothers with kids in school are not going to be bothered by kids running around a home office, and they will not bat an eye if there happens to be a potty seat in one corner of the office. I had a friend who used to work in my business and was willing to baby-sit if I got into a pinch and had to run out to buy supplies. That’s not your average employee.
Paying for a part time employee was tricky at first, but I figured how to divide up the workload so that there was more work being done and more money coming in. Having an employee never failed to pay for itself in the end, and in turn I had fewer hours to work and a friend that was grateful for the extra money.
Related Blog Entry:
Is It Time to Hire Some Help?