Talented and hard-working employees are important assets for any companies. Although it tends to be fairly easy and affordable for established companies to hire top talent, small startups sometimes struggle to meet their staffing needs in a way that is affordable. If you’re running a smaller company with fewer resources, you may need to get a little bit creative about hiring so that you find talented employees that won’t cost you too much.

The following is a good overview on how you can recruit top talent on a budget.

Consider the type of employment you’re offering

Hiring a full time staff member is not likely to be the least expensive way to go. These days, more and more companies are looking for freelance employees. Freelance employees are often more affordable to hire because hiring them doesn’t involve certain expenses like worker’s compensation insurance or full health benefits. Also, you don’t have to worry about withholding taxes from employee paychecks for freelance employees. This can cut down on your administrative costs.

Part time and freelance employees make it so that there is less of a commitment from both your employees and your company. Freelance work can just be offered temporarily so that you can try out employees before deciding whether you want to hire them on full time or not.

Minimize the costs of hiring

There are numerous tasks that go into hiring people, and some of these tasks can be expensive and time consuming. You can cut down on your hiring expenses in numerous ways.

First, you can use online recruiting options like hiring websites to quickly target the employees that have the experience that your position requires. Also, you can handle communication with prospective employees online through e-mail rather than in-person whenever possible.

You can conduct interviews using online tools like Skype so that interviews can be conducted from the convenience of the applicant’s home. This means you won’t have to set time aside and put more effort than necessary into scheduling.

Get the word out about your employee needs

How well connected you are in your community is a key component when it comes to finding employees. The more people you know and the larger your network is, the better off you’ll be.

Simply talking to people you know and letting them know about your staffing needs is very helpful. This provides you with word-of-mouth advertising for your open positions.

One highly important resource to tap when finding prospective employees through your network is your existing employees. Make sure you recruit your employees to help you find others who might be interested in similar positions. Your employees can put in a good word for your company and express their enthusiasm in working for you.

Provide opportunities for employees to learn

Probably one of the most important things prospective employees look for when applying for a job is learning opportunities. If you can provide employees with free training on a profitable skill, they’ll probably going to be willing to work for you for less pay.

Think about what learning opportunities you can offer to ambitious employees. Employees who value learning opportunities are going to be the kind of employees you want for your company. This is especially true if you have a small and growing company because your employees can grow with you.

Make sure that you let applicants to your positions know what they stand to learn from working with you. Avoid putting across the impression that you’re just hiring employees for one simple task and that there will be no room for growth at your company.

Make unique and rare benefits available

Of course, one of the biggest benefits employees are looking for nowadays is health insurance. If there is any way you can provide good health benefits to your employees at an acceptable price, do it. If you offer health benefits, you’ll find that it is much easier to find qualified staff and your staff members will be willing to work for smaller salaries.

However, health insurance is not the only highly valued benefit you can offer. You can also provide other perks like employee social events and comfortable work facilities. Let applicants know if you offer performance bonuses or commission in addition to a base salary so that prospective employees are aware of all of the potential a position at your company offers. In some industries, for example in real estate, commissions are generally expected. Real estate agents may even work on a commission-only basis.

If you’re looking for affordable staffings solutions for your company, you should focus on what your prospective employees are looking for in addition to money. Remember that salary is not the only thing employees want and need. You can attract top talent by offering advantages such as rewarding work, a great company culture, free training opportunities, and good benefits. Give employees benefits and extras that they can’t have with the higher paying jobs out there and you may be surprised at how affordable it can be to find talented people.

Photo: www.depositphotos.com