How to Manage Part-Time Employees

Poornima

13 years ago

One of the perks that comes with getting funding is hiring full time staff to get things done. But if you’re in the boat of bootstrapping your business like myself then it might take you sometime to make your first hire. In the meantime as a founder you should be doing your best to delegate even if its to people who can contribute part-time. Learn how to manage part time employees.

Figure out what is the minimum commitment each contributor can give you. Is it 2 hours, 10 hours? 1 blog post? A market research project? Figure out the units of work, and deliverable dates so you can measure progress. I typically keep everything on a project basis, keep the projects small so there is progress, and for tasks like customer support that are unending, have it be on an hourly basis. Managing time is the first step to manage part time employees. It doesn’t matter the size of the project or the level of contribution, project management basics always apply!

Hire staff who are competent and can produce results. You want to find those who already know how to get the work done. So that in the limited amount of hours they are working they are producing. The corollary to that is you want to make sure they are each doing the work they are best at, not what needs to get done. i.e. if you have people who love doing sales, they should be doing sales. This way they will at least feel confident and competent and keep working to produce results. When they finish the work you need to do a checkin much like you would with a paid or fulltime employee. Retention is important regardless of whether someone is working fulltime or parttime, and they deserve to be appreciated!

Alternatives to part-time staff. Some folks love hiring interns. I think they can be great as long as you follow the previous bullet i.e. you don’t want to have to spend time training them. I’d also recommend automating as much as possible, and using a VA for tasks that cannot be automated but are time sinks for myself.

Make sure you’ve taken the time to create projects that are clear and concise. I recently hired an intern, but before I brought her onboard I went ahead and setup all the projects that I needed help with, and then broke them up into weeks. Below is the sample document I sent her right before she started. She used the document, and put in a few comments when she needed clarification. I’d respond to her comments either inline or during our daily 10 minute checkin.

Sample Intern Projects

Week 1

1. Compile conference list into a spreadsheet. Here is the criteria:

Must be open to paying speakers (at the very least room and board)
Proposal dates shouldn’t have passed!
Find out key contacts and conference organizers.

Note to Poornima:

I want to send an email asking for more information about pay/benefits given to speakers since none is given on the site. How do I write one? Here’s is what I’ve started:

(“Dear Conference Organizers,

I am the community management intern for Poornima Vijayashanker, CEO of Bizeebee and Femgineer. She is looking to speak at your conference on ________. What sort of benefits or pay are speakers given?

Best,
Jasmine)

2. Social Media – increase followers for Femgineer on Twitter and Facebook.

This is an ongoing task to be done weekly. Try to follow 200+ people a week.
People to follow: females – software engineers, software developers, engineers, women’s leadership organizations, bloggers in tech (women), engineering organizations (e.g. stick with it, society of women engineers)

3. Blog Post

How you got this internship, and what you’ve learned so far.
Need bio that should be 1 paragraph, (see Frances’ bio) and small pic.

Remember even with limited means you can make progress! Learn how to successfully manage part time employees. The same rules of finding people who are highly motivated, care about getting things done, and are interested in your product and company still apply. The final thing I will say is you should not feel guilty about the inability to compensate people monetarily! However, it is extremely important that you are respectful of their time, other commitments, show appreciation for their work, give them tasks that will build confidence, checkin periodically, and compensate them when you do have the means to do so. The final point is extremely important. If people notice that you’re benefiting from their hard work and not sharing the windfall they will definitely leave or start to underperform! Seems like a lot right? Truth is that it is the lack of doing all of the above that drive people away from high paying careers to pursue ones that are more fulfilling even if they are paid less 😉

Recruiting a team to build your next idea? If you want to learn a step-by-step approach to setting up a part time team check out our Lean Product Development Course Learn more!

Pocket