Managing Employees in Your Home Cleaning Business
A Home Business Article Contributed by Jenni Mckinney
Do You Need Help in Your Home Cleaning Business?
If you are thinking about starting or have recently started a home cleaning business, you may be surprised to discover how quickly your demand for labor can grow. If you start out going solo, you will probably discover that, while you can earn some nice extra spending money in your business, you will not be earning a nice living unless you hire some help. The very first thing to decide before seeking workers is if you are going to treat them as independent contractors or as employees.
Hiring Independent Contractors in Your Home Cleaning Business
The main difference in the categories is that with an independent contractor, you are the general contractor of a home cleaning business, and as such do not need to take out or handle the worker's taxes. She will have to handle those herself, because as an independent contractor, she is considered by the IRS to be her own small home cleaning business.
In addition, because this is a small business that you are dealing with, you do not have the headache of providing any kind of benefits, overtime, or paid vacation. Because this seems to be such a no-brainer, many cleaning businesses are utilizing independent contractors as helpers. But there is a catch: to qualify as an independent contractor, the person must meet several requirements that the IRS has imposed.
One requirement is that the independent contractor does work on a contract basis only, meaning that instead of being paid a salary or via a time sheet, the independent contractor must be paid "per job". In addition, the independent contractor must have income from multiple sources, meaning that she cannot be working full time for you and not working for anyone else.
If you decide to pay your workers a salary and you decide that you do not wish them to also be working for the competition, you should probably take them on as employees.
Hiring Employees in Your Home Cleaning Business
There are many benefits to hiring employees instead of independent contractors for your home cleaning business. As an employer, you have the right to control the details of how the services are performed, such as specific working hours and locations. In addition, your employee has no authority to delegate his or her work to a third party, a right that they would have had as an independent contractor.
The first step to hiring employees is to register your company name with the IRS and obtain an Employer Identification Number (EIN). This will allow you to fill out all the proper forms, including W-2 forms for withholding employee taxes. The next step is to advertise your job opening, which can be done online at sites like Monster.com or HotJobs.com, or you can place a classified ad in your local newspaper. Once you have a few candidates that you like, you must negotiate a salary.
Since cleaning requires low-level skills and virtually no higher education, you should be able to pay your employees minimum wage or close to it. Hire your best choice, and put them to work!
