Who You Are is What You Do When No One is Looking
And our first Q&A session: When is it time to bring on help?
One of my favorite books on creating company culture, What You Do is Who You Are, defines culture as "how your employees act when they think no one is watching". I think about this a lot because it's so, so true. I reflect on a company I worked for that I still believe was run by the best CEO I've ever seen, and the employees worked tirelessly and honestly. Even when they knew the CEO was out of the office (this was before the WFH days), they were at their desks early and they left when their work was done, never before. Then I think about the company I worked for after, where a senior member of the executive team was abusing his expense account and making young women in the office feel uncomfortable because he thought he could get away with it. I remember the teams that would cut corners on product development because they knew the CEO wasn't well-versed in the product technicalities and the teams that took the initiative to try to grow revenue and develop new business on their own, even when it wasn't part of their job description.
It also prompts me to think about our current reality with social media. When you know everyone is watching, you perform. But who you are is what you do and how you act when you think no one is looking. I say this because I think it's an important reminder that first, as we all know, what we see is not a reflection of reality. And second, you can give yourself a little grace if you feel that there's a disconnect between who people perceive you to be and who you feel you really are. My perhaps unpopular opinion is that that's okay. While I appreciate a constant push for authenticity on social platforms, let's also please remember that these are platforms designed for entertainment, not for radical transparency. They're not 24 hour webcam feeds, they're curated snapshots of a life that feels worth living. It's wonderful when an influencer with a big platform uses her reach for good, and opts in to sharing something vulnerable or helpful, but it shouldn't be a requirement. You can post about the good things that happened to you or something you're proud of while also being really bummed about something that's not going right in your life. You don't have to share it all.
With that, I urge you to think about who you are as a reflection of how you show up when you know the world isn't keeping tabs. How do you channel your emotion? How do you show the people you love that you love them? How do you spend your money, or how do you go about saving it? How do you decide when it's time to leave? And how well do you know all of these things about yourself? Forget what other people think they know about you--spend some real time with yourself this week and try to take mental notes of the things you do when you're truly alone.
Now onto our very first advice column Q&A! (Catchy name for said advice column still coming soon ;)
Q: How do you evaluate when it's time to hire a team member? All of my team members have always been part-time contractors, and it's been specific to client work. It helped me reduce risk on my end but it's been really difficult to maintain consistency in team members over the years. I feel like I'm always starting at square one when I hire a new contractor, and therefore it's hard to grow.
A: This is an excellent question with a lot of nuance! As you alluded to, there's a financial risk to bringing on an employee. Whenever I'm budgeting for a new FTE (full-time employee) hire, I add 30% to their salary cost to account and budget for payroll taxes, insurance, and other benefits. Then there's the potential financial implications of what happens if you need to let them go. You might be on the hook for severance pay, uninsurance taxes, and other unexpected costs. And, of course, there's the time cost and investment of actually hiring and training someone in the first place, and the risk that they don't end up being the right person. But what's also often missing from this conversation is how consultants adjust their wages to account for being a contractor vs. employee. Consultants will always charge a higher rate to do part-time work because they have to pay their own taxes, cover their own insurance, and they don't get to take advantage of employee-sponsored perks like commuter benefits, gym memberships, or any other small but meaningful things. While you might pay a consultant $150/hour, you'd pay that same person $60/hour to be a full-time employee. There are also the legal considerations. Technically speaking, one major difference between a consultant or contractor and a full-time employee is that you cannot dictate where and when they work, and you must have a clearly scoped project. If you get audited by your state's labor board and they find that you've been paying a consultant to work more like an employee, they'll charge you back taxes and it gets expensive, fast.
So now that we know the financial and legal considerations, do a quick check in your head--do you need this future hire to be available to you around the clock, whenever you need support? Or are they someone who's delivering something on a schedule, but when the work gets done doesn't matter so much as long as they deliver the project on time? If your situation is the former, you're probably looking at hiring that person as an employee. If it's the latter, a contractor could still make sense.
But let's say you're somewhat flexible and while this person's work could legally qualify as a contractor, you are still wondering if it would be better to hire them as an employee. If your company is very small (fewer than 15 employees), I would recommend only hiring this person as an employee if they can do far more than whatever their technical expertise is, or if you know with certainty that they'll be working at least 40 hours per week for the next 6+ months on guaranteed client work within their technical expertise. So if they're a copywriter, for example, make sure you've got 40 hours per week of copywriting work to deliver to clients for at least 6 months, or see if they've got skills outside of copywriting. Can they help with back-end client admin and logistics? Or perhaps they're excellent with clients and have a desire to try to bring in more client work or can take over some client management? And, importantly, are they looking to grow with you or are they happy remaining a copywriter indefinitely? When you're at the early stages, you want to hire people who are either exceptional at what they do and you have more than enough stable full-time work for them or they're eager to grow the company with you and pitch in across all functions when necessary.
Lastly, there's a difference between hiring someone salaried vs. hourly. Hourly employees are different from contractors, and are sometimes entitled to company benefits (health insurance, PTO) and are always entitled to overtime. There are legal considerations for these employees as well, and instead of getting into the nitty gritty (especially since I'm not a lawyer and am not qualified to give full legal advice, ha) I will just leave this here: I'm hosting a workshop series next month for creative entrepreneurs and content creators and one of the workshops is with a respected startup/business lawyer who will be covering this exact topic (and many more!). You can find more information here!
Hopefully that helps, and please continue to send me your questions! Can't wait to answer more :)