First Employee

Nednats

I'm currently helping a friend with their business.

The business has now got to the point where there is now to much work for my friend to handle on their own. The problem is the business is not yet making enough money to pay for a member of staff. Also the work is unpredictable sometimes it really busy and there is need of an extra pair of hands but sometimes there would be no need.

If there was an employee my friend would have some free time to find more ways to make money from the business.

Does anyone know or have any idea of how this situation could be made easier?

Savvy_Sue

One way would be to take someone on with a variable hours or zero hours contract, but it can be difficult because obviously your staff need to know what the minimum they'll get each week is, and they may need to work a second job to make ends meet, which gives them less flexibility for your friend's job.

What sort of work is it your friend wants someone to do?

getmore4less

She needs a plan.

How much is she paying herself per hour, is it profitable

How much time is currently spent on various aspects of the business, development/growth, processing order, overheads like accounts.

when is time needed for effective business development

identify tasks that will be productive

is there a minimum workload that could be done by one other person, say 1/2 day a week to start with.

skills/training requirements, age of worker

Why is workload variable can this be smoothed will depend on the type of business.

Mistral001

It appears that the business is not very profitable. In that situation taking on an employee is unlikely to make it any more profitable. All it will do is eat up valuable capital.

What about lending a hand (unpaid or just expenses) to yoru friend yourself at peak times. It might be just the help he/she needs to build up enough capital to employ someone or to give him/her breathing space to plan the business more.

whitewing

It would help to have a vague idea of what the tasks are that may be done by someone else, or what working patterns.

A 16/17 year old could probably bear a lack of commitment but I guess it would depend on quality control amongst other things.

Wywth

Nednats wrote: »

I'm currently helping a friend with their business.

The business has now got to the point where there is now to much work for my friend to handle on their own. The problem is the business is not yet making enough money to pay for a member of staff. Also the work is unpredictable sometimes it really busy and there is need of an extra pair of hands but sometimes there would be no need.

If there was an employee my friend would have some free time to find more ways to make money from the business.

Does anyone know or have any idea of how this situation could be made easier?

Whatever your friend is doing now is obviously not very profitable as you say she could not afford to pay someone else to do it.

Therefore she should restrict demand for that part of the business (e.g. by increasing her prices) and use the extra time then generated to concentrate on finding better, more profitable ways to generate an income.

Nednats

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

One way would be to take someone on with a variable hours or zero hours contract, but it can be difficult because obviously your staff need to know what the minimum they'll get each week is, and they may need to work a second job to make ends meet, which gives them less flexibility for your friend's job.

What sort of work is it your friend wants someone to do?

This what I've been thinking.

The business isn't making a lot of money but it's a start up in it's first year.

When I said they can't afford to pay someone what i meant is a regular member of staff. When is is busy there is more custom and more money. But the problem is the workload is unpredictable. You could ask someone to come in and then their be no work for them.

Any Ideas?

getmore4less

You need to give a clue.

What determines the demand for the work load.

why is the work demand too much at some times

Nednats

getmore4less wrote: »

You need to give a clue.

What determines the demand for the work load.

why is the work demand too much at some times

Retail.

Footfall changes daily might have something to do with the weather.
Sometimes there is to many customers for one person to handle, other days it's fine and sometimes there hardly any costumers at all.

Russe11

Phone up the job centre and see if they will send some one to you for free labour.

I worked a place previous where the jobcentre got in contact with the company, they wanted to send some people for work experience, the job centre paid the company and the company got free labour.

There was ment to be the oppourtunity of a permanent job for these workers at the end of their work experience, but it never did actually happen.

Savvy_Sue

Ah, now retail is difficult, because you're basically wanting people available at the drop of a hat, and it's not terribly predictable. However, your friend should start keeping records and see if she can spot any trends, eg Mondays are nearly dead, the last Friday of the month is always hectic, there's always a rush after the school pick up etc.

I suspect you'd find it hard to manage with just one 'drop of a hat' person, but there's nothing to stop you recruiting more than one.

And it could be worth identifying other tasks which could help it turn into a regular job, eg Tuesdays tend to be busier, so if she had someone in every Tuesday and it turned out quiet they could thoroughly clean the shop / do a quick stock take / the owner could get on with ordering stock or going to the wholesalers or whatever.

It's also a case of identifying things which could be done by an employee which would lead to an increase in income fairly rapidly, and then getting the right kind of person in to help out on a very varied job description.