One of the best feelings for a business owner is making a new hire. The whole point of starting out on your own was to grow your vision into a thriving company, and every new employee is an extension of that vision. When you start a business, you start a family.

The early days with a new employee have a serious influence on both parties’ happiness and how productive your new hire will be. From recruitment and relocation to onboarding and developing a new relationship, your first few steps will carry over to future growth and keeping turnover low.

Start By Hiring the Right Way

Making the right hire is the obvious first step. When employees don’t work out or are suboptimal, it’s usually because they weren’t the right fit in the first place.

Business owners and managers could spend a lifetime reading about effective hiring, but it’s worth noting that it’s not something you have to do on your own. Most PEOs offer recruitment services that can help you sort through and connect with talent regionally, nationally, and even globally. As the world gets flatter, companies have more opportunity to find the perfect fit to help them grow. You can put ads in the newspaper, conduct interviews, weigh and measure candidates, and hope for the best -- or you can work with a partner who can match talent to your needs.

Smooth Onboarding Makes for Happy Employees

You’ve found a great prospect and you’re excited that they accepted your offer -- but they’re probably even more excited than you are. Getting a new job is an amazing feeling, and it’s especially nice when the company makes sure onboarding is simple, clear, and efficient.

Partnering with a PEO means that enrolling in health care and benefits programs is as easy as possible. Shuffling a mountain of paperwork through HR -- especially if your HR is a shared responsibility -- is daunting for both the employer and employee, and running that gauntlet is the last thing either party wants to do. PEOs can develop a straightforward onboarding process for you that makes for an easy transition for your new hire.

They can also help you develop employee handbooks and related materials to ensure that expectations are clear and well-defined, which eliminates a host of confusion and potential problems down the line.

Focus on Building Your Relationship

When you make a new hire, both you and the employee want to get to work. It’s that simple.

By streamlining the hiring and onboarding processes with a PEO, you’re able to focus on building a relationship with your new employee rather than jumping through hoops. Get to know them -- who they are, what’s important to them, and where they’re headed in their career. Open up your company and its people to make them feel as welcome as possible so you both hit the ground running.

When you make a new hire, you’re growing your company. That should be exclusively about people -- not hurdles and paperwork. Forming a close relationship from Day 1 means that your new employees will be productive more quickly and increase their buy-in, which not only reduces turnover in the long-term, but also helps build your company’s reputation as an excellent place to work.

It’s possible to execute optimal recruitment and onboarding on your own, but it tends to be more efficient with an experienced partner who knows your company’s needs -- and that allows you to focus solely on building your company’s family.