This post is part of a series sponsored by SWBC.
When your small business clients first imagined themselves running a successful business, they probably didn’t spend much time dreaming about executing HR-related tasks.
Now that their business is a success, most business owners find themselves wearing a lot of hats throughout the day. In addition to running a business, they’re spending more time than seems appropriate on HR-related issues like tending to payroll and administering health benefits, adhering to the latest compliance laws, and hiring and recruiting new employees.
How much time, exactly? The answer is surprising!
Hiring and Recruiting: Up to 30 Hours for One New Employee
Many small- and mid-sized business owners have faced significant challenges filling vacant positions during a historically tight labor market. Detecting and attracting top talent is vital to your clients’ continued success, but it’s a major drain on time.
According to LinkedIn Business, the vast majority (90%) of small business owners report being immediately involved with or entirely responsible for the process of searching for, screening, and interviewing job applicants—a process that typically takes one-two months, but can stretch to four-six months in a competitive job market like the one we’re in now.
The five most time-consuming hiring and recruiting tasks for small- to mid-sized business owners are:
- Interviewing: 7 hours per week
- Searching for candidates: 6 hours per week
- Reaching out to applicants: 6 hours per week
- Screening applicants: 6 hours per week
- Researching and improving best hiring practices: 5 hours per week
When you add it all up, your clients could be devoting 30 hours over the course of a month or two to hire and recruit one employee!
A savvy business owner could free up a lot of their time by having a Professional Employer Organization, or PEO, handle all the paperwork, while he or she still oversees the recruiting and hiring of personnel.
A dependable PEO will be up to date on the ever-evolving federal, state, and local employment regulations and best practices. When you use a PEO, you’ll gain access to a team of skilled professionals who will be at your disposal to tend to time-consuming hiring and recruiting tasks.
Payroll: 5 Hours Each Pay Period
A recent survey of over 1,000 small business owners found that processing payroll is one of the most substantial time consumers business leaders face. They reported spending at least five hours per pay period on this task.
Here’s a breakdown of those hours:
- 111 minutes spent calculating payroll taxes
- 96 minutes spent filing taxes
- 86 minutes spent allocating funding
For some business owners, the time it takes to process payroll can add up to 21 days over every year!
Processing payroll is a crucial task that has to be tended, or your clients’ businesses will grind to a halt. They can’t change that, but they can minimize how much time and energy they’re taking our of their own day to do payroll by partnering with a PEO.
Compliance: Up to 20 Hours Per Month or 10 Days Per Year
According to the survey above, various labor laws across states and cities complicated the payroll process for 70% of employers surveyed.
In fact, the Kansas City Business Journal reports 44% of small business owners said they spend 40 or more hours each year on federal regulations, and 1/3 of owners spend more than 80 hours each year on compliance.
From familiarizing themselves with evolving regulations and implementing appropriate changes, business owners can lose up to two full weeks’ worth of time that otherwise could be spent on directing big-picture initiatives for their business.
Health Benefits Administration: 1.6 Hours Per Week
According to a survey of small business owners, “A large majority (87%) said they manage employee benefits on their own, spending an average of 1.6 hours per week on benefits administration. During open enrollment, employers say they spend about 8 hours managing the enrollment process. More than a third (37%) said that administering employee benefits involved moderate to heavy paperwork.”
It’s easy for your small business clients to get overwhelmed when all of their passion, drive, and motivation are buried under a mountain of tedious administrative paperwork.
Fortunately, you can help liberate them from having to deal with the headaches and heartaches that come along with managing these tasks—just recommend SWBC PEO handle it for them!
At SWBC PEO, we are dedicated to helping your business clients tackle HR tasks so they can become more efficient and profitable. When your clients work with us, our team of experts assist with stressful and time-consuming responsibilities such as payroll, benefits, HR, and compliance, allowing them to focus on what’s most important–growing their business. Visit our website to learn more.
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