Help Wanted: You Have Options!

Many people have complained about the worker shortages this year. If you need additional workers in order to grow your business, here are some ideas for your consideration. 

Where to Look for Workers

We may think of workers as only being employees, but there are a lot more options if you’re open-minded.  Here’s a list of places to find workers of all kinds:

• Recruiters
• Employment agencies
• Online job portals, such as Indeed, SimplyHired, and ZipRecruiter.
• Social media, including LinkedIn Jobs
• Your own website, email list, or employee referrals
• Temp agencies
• Specialized online job portals that cater to your industry and business type
• Virtual assistant organizations
• Day labor online sites and pickup areas
• Job matching sites such as Upwork, Fiverr, and Freelancer.
• Colleges, when you need interns and entry-level workers
• Your local unemployment office
• Small business development centers
• Virtual assistant agencies or businesses
• Chambers of Commerce and other business organizations
• Professional organization directories where a license is needed, such as hair stylists, dentists, or CPAs
• Friends, colleagues, competitors, and neighbors; your own personal or business network
• Craigslist and local classified ads
• High school guidance counselors if you want to hire straight out of high school
• Outsourcing to a company that provides the labor that does what you need
• Volunteer matching sites

Options for Adding Workers/Labor

There are many ways you can increase labor in your business. The obvious is hiring employees.  Beyond employees, there are many more options than you might first think:

• Contractors, where you have a contract for a particular job and meet all of the IRS and other compliance requirements
• Temp workers, where you “lease” an employee who stays on the temp agency payroll or hire them outright with a limited term of employment.
• Part-time workers on your payroll
• Companies that you outsource the work to and contract with as vendors to provide a particular service. They may outsource your labor needs or simply have labor as a component of the product or service you have contracted them to supply.
• PEO, or professional employer organizations, act as a client’s employer and hire their employees as well as manage payroll and other HR compliance tasks.
• Interns, which are unpaid positions. Check your state and local rules for laws regarding hiring interns. 
• Volunteers.  This is common if you have a nonprofit organization. 

With all of these options available, it should be a bit easier to find ways to add labor and grow your business.