Hiring/Managing/Firing Employees
A Guide For Small Business Owners

This section isn't designed to give you detailed information about legal requirements involved in hiring/managing/firing employees (that advice is best found by consulting a good employment law attorney). Rather it is designed to give you some simple advice.

Hire your people carefully. Screen resumes and check resources. Consult your state business resources to find out what questions you can and cannot ask in an interview, the acceptable limits of background checks, etc. Always get a signed waiver from a potential employee allowing you to conduct a background check. Take the time to hire carefully and institute a regular process for deciding upon selecting new hires. Select the best people you can find.

If you find you've made a hiring error and the employee isn't working out, then it's probably wise to fire the employee as soon as possible. Be sure to give performance feedback so that the employee knows what is expected of him and what improvements must be made. Document firing decisions. Business owners tend to say it is the employees they should have fired, but didn't, who cause them the most grief.

Management of employees is a personal skill. In fact, as Daniel Goleman discusses in Working With Emotional Intelligence personal skills are by far the largest determinant of managerial success.

Employees need meaningful feedback. Some need more guidance than others to do a good job. Always let an employee know when they have done a job well, and let them know what is expected of them. Encourage questions. Establish company rules, and be sure all employees understand these rules, and why they exist.

Employment Issues (previous section)