WHAT? Who would put up an ad requesting someone who could fail? You might be surprised. While reading the want ads I came across an ad as follows:
Wanted: Individual to run sales and production of small company.
My first question is: So, which position is it? Is it sales, or is it production? How is this organized? What is this person’s actual focus? If this person is both running the sales AND the production, the business owner can expect to be disappointed and receive a resignation within 6 months.
The revolutionary idea of the assembly line comes to mind. A cohesive division of labor is one of the basics of business economics. Giving employees a focus enables them to excel at their jobs, feel satisfied, and produce a better bottom line.
At one time, I worked for a web-company who had their engineers doubling as sales people. This was ridiculous for several reasons. First, sales itself, is a skill. It’s a people skill, and the average engineer-though he/she may be personable- usually enjoys engineering, not selling. These poor fellows could neither take the time to be engineers, nor excel at the sales aspect. It was a waste of their time and the company’s money. Finally, this company caught on and hired actual technical sales people, but by this time it was too late. Six months later, that portion of the company shut down and ran out of funds.
In another company, I was asked to both make phone calls AND answer the phone-for sales. How ridiculous! “Hello, Mr. Customer, I was hoping to have the opportunity to ask you about, oh, wait, I have to take this call, would you mind holding?” I lasted 3 weeks at this job. With this kind of poor organization (and an unwillingness of the owners to listen) there were many more similar gaffes. I couldn’t do my primary job: make the company money.
For those looking for work, examine what you read. Is the idea in front of you one that is reasonable? Are you being overtasked before you begin? Don't forget that you need to interview the potential employer about the expectations given to you as much as they need to interview you.
For businesses, times are tight and taxes are high, but it grieves me to see companies set themselves up for what will ultimately be a frustrating and costly experience. Two 1099 employees might be better than one full time who will quit. There are many organizations out there who will help brainstorm these ideas for free. Asking for help would not also be an obligation to take the advice, but it might inspire the best idea for the situation.
The only problem with implementing two 1099 employees is this, the IRS looks at how companies pay the people who work there and if that individual (the worker) does not do their taxes properly the IRS will go after the bigger company for taxes and penalties.
ReplyDeleteI worked for a company, many years ago, who had to collect paperwork from the 1099 employee proving that they were in fact a business, the criteria that the IRS had outlined was basically this: they had to be incorporated, they had to have 3 or more employees and they had to be paying taxes on behalf of those employees. We had to collect copies of this information and keep it on file, in case the smaller 1099 company didn't pay their income taxes, then we had done our "due diligence" and could get out of being fiscally responsible for their actions. Again this was many years ago, so I'm not sure how a tax attorney would advise a company planning on implementing this type of employee in this day and age.
Wow, sorry, very bad grammar on my part. Talk about run on sentences.
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