Saving Money on Personnel Costs

Running a business can get expensive, especially if you run a company that requires a sizeable staff. One of the problems with a large staff is that it also requires overhead like phones, computers, office space, electricity and other items to keep it going. Part of the challenge of running a business is to balance all of this overhead while still allowing the company to generate a profit.

Personnel costs can be expensive if you do not take the necessary steps to lighten the financial load. There are several things you can do that will allow you to get the help you need without putting out cash that your company does not have.

Offer Options

Many companies hire people full-time because they assume that employment candidates only want full-time jobs. When you are putting a job description together, analyze the job duties to see if the position could be a part-time job as well. When you give employment candidates options, you will find that your responses increase and the opportunity to hire part-time people who are happy to be part-time also increases. Some companies avoid advertising part-time positions because they feel that they may not get the amount of responses they are looking for. But you will be surprised at how much money you save and how many quality responses you get for part-time work.

Telecommuting

As was mentioned, one of the personnel costs that can get very high is overhead. The cost of putting a phone on a desk and giving an employee Internet access can get high after a while. You can avoid all of those costs by offering your employees the option to telecommute where it is practical. Office personnel, sales professionals and marketing people are examples of employees that could telecommute at least a few times a week. You can create a couple of common workstations they can share when they are in the office.

You will want to have a phone line installed into the home of telecommuters to make sure that all business calls are properly routed, and you can supply your telecommuters with a basic computer to access the Internet and get their work done. But supplying the phone, office space, electricity and all of the other overhead costs would be the responsibility of the telecommuter.

Independent Contractors

Independent contractors are experts in their field that prefer to not work directly for a single organization. When you use independent contractors, all you have to pay for is the results you get. The contractor is responsible for providing his own work area, Internet connection, phone, computer and anything else he needs to get the results you are looking for.

An independent contractor helps you to keep your personnel costs even lower by not requiring you to do any payroll processing. An independent contractor is responsible for paying his own taxes and getting his own health insurance. All you have to pay is the lump sum agreed to in the contract. The rest of the costs are the responsibility of the contractor.