7 ingenious ways to slash your employee costs

When you run a business, you’ll notice one of your biggest expenses are your employees! Depending on their level of skill and expertise, they can make a significant dent in your profit.

As you can imagine, it’s hard to run a growing business without hiring people to work for you. Of course, you can’t expect them to work for free. Or even for the Minimum Wage! You might be thinking at this point that there’s nothing you can do to lower your HR costs.

What if I told you that there are several things you can do? It’s true! What’s more, the following are all proven methods to slash your employee costs. Check them out:

Idea #1: Don’t overpay your staff

You don’t want to get known as an employer that pays peanuts. But, at the same time, you shouldn’t pay more than the industry average for your workers!

It’s crucial that you offer them a fair wage. You just need to make sure you aren’t paying them too much to work for you! When hiring new staff, make sure they get paid in line with current trends, not historical ones.

There are many sources online where you can research the wages you should expect to pay your staff.

Idea #2: Don’t hire people unless you need to do so

You might feel warm inside knowing that you are giving people jobs in your local area. But what’s the point of doing so if you can’t also remain profitable at the same time?

It’s no secret that we live in austere times. To survive in today’s tough business world, one must make sacrifices if necessary. I recommend reviewing what your workers do each day. You can then decide if any of their tasks can get automated.

Idea #3: Give your employees more responsibilities

These days there is no such thing as an exact job description. People often have to “do other people’s jobs” for various reasons. You could give people extra tasks and increase their wages to reflect that.

How does that save you money? Well, if one person can do the tasks of two, you avoid paying for two members of staff! You should just make sure that you don’t burden your staff with work. Otherwise, they are likely to abandon ship and go work elsewhere.

Idea #4: Use technology to manage each worker’s time

It can be annoying if you have to pay employees that aren’t giving you 100% during working hours. For instance, you might have some workers that take long lunch breaks. Others may often get to work late and not stay behind to make up the time.

To highlight any areas of concern, you can use technology to help you. Advance Systems sell time management products that can help you keep tabs on your staff. Examples include software that enables employees to sign in or out, and log their times.

Idea #5: Offer flexible pay and working hour packages

It’s likely that some of your employees have families at home to look after. Those workers may welcome working less in exchange for a lower salary. For instance, let’s say they would usually work a 9-5 day, Monday to Friday.

Instead, they could work 9 am to 1 pm, Monday through Thursday. That gives them time to do the school run each day, and Friday to do any errands at home.

More people seek flexibility over salary these days. It’s essential to the growth of your business that you identify those needs. That’s because they offer obvious benefits to both parties!

Idea #6: Don’t hire full-time staff

The trouble with hiring employees on a full-time basis is they could leave you in the lurch! For example, if they go on sick leave or holiday, who would cover their work?

It makes sense to hire two or even three part-time employees per one full-time worker. That way if one of them is absent, your company won’t suffer a big productivity hit.

From a financial perspective, part-time staff are cheaper to hire. They also have lower admin costs too.

Idea #7: Give employees incentives to work at their best

Most sales staff get paid low salaries and high commissions to help motivate them to work hard. Consider offering all new staff such a package to help keep your costs down.

That way if you have a member of staff that isn’t suited to their role, their cost to you won’t be so high.

I hope these ideas have given you some inspiration. Thanks for reading!