Hiring employees is a huge responsibility. Before hiring anyone,be sure to carefully analyze your needs in terms of extraassistance.

Once you've gotten through the hiring process, there's still muchmore you must do now that you've become an employer. If you'relike most small business owners, you just don't have time to doall you're supposed to be doing when it comes to managing youremployees.

The article aims to outline five steps you can take right now tobetter manage your employees. Failure to complete these steps mayone day lead to trouble for your business - trouble that couldeasily have been avoided.

Step #1 - Publish a Company Handbook

Most employers do nothing more than chuckle at the mere mentionof a company handbook. Who has time for such frivolousness?Besides, no one reads them anyway. If these are your thoughts,then think again. Make time to create a company handbook and thenmake every employee read it. Also have every employee sign astatement saying that they have read the handbook. Place thesigned statement into their personnel file where it will remainshould you ever need it.

Step #2 - Create Files for Sensitive Employee Data

You will have a lot of employee-related documentation to keeptrack of and you must have a place to store it all, safely, andaway from prying eyes. Payroll information, health insuranceinformation, certifications including expiration dates,performance reviews, and kudos from happy clients as well asnegative comments from clients or supervisors are just some ofthe documentation you need to maintain.

Step #3 - Create a Schedule

If you operate a business with "normal" business hours and just afew employees, you might think that creating a schedule isunnecessary. But unless there is a schedule, you can only assumethat your employees know when they need to show up to work.Creating schedules is a good habit to get into, especially if youplan to have a lot of employees on your payroll. Create a workschedule for your employees and put it where they will see it.

Step #4 - Perform Periodic Employee Evaluations

Employee evaluations or performance reviews tend to be moreimportant to the employee than they are to the employer.Employees want to know how they are doing and when they'll beeligible for a pay increase. There are so many reasons why it'simportant to complete employee reviews, including legal ones. Anemployee review is one of the few things you have, in writing andsigned by employee and employer, that clearly describes anemployee's performance on the job. Should you ever need to letthe employee go or take other action, you'll have thisdocumentation to back up your decision.

Step #5 - Keep a Safe Work Environment

Sure you need to keep your fire exits clearly marked and free ofclutter. But there are Federal and state laws with which you mustcomply covering everything from the storage of hazardouschemicals to the posting of bulletins in common areas whereemployees congregate. Comply with these regulations before youend up on the losing side of a lawsuit.

Properly implementing these five steps seems like a lot of workespecially when you have little spare time. One way you canmanage your employees and still have time to do all your othertasks is to purchase software that has been designed to helpmanage employees. Spending the time and money to better manageyour employees now will keep you from spending even more time andmoney later on, after you've been hit with an employee-relatedlawsuit!

Copyright © 2004 Cavyl Stewart. Get more software tips, strategies and recommendations to help you better manage your employees by signing up for my Exclusive 100% free, 100% original content ecourse: "How To Survive The Legal Dangers Of Being An Employer." To sign up please visit:http://www.find-small-business-software.com/employee-ecourse.html