Utah Business, Part 3: Hiring and Staffing in a Tight Labor Market

A small business owner in Utah County told me she had hired six people in one year and kept two. "I keep hiring good people," she said. "They keep leaving." I asked what the first week looked like. She thought for a moment. "I hand them a key and say 'You'll figure it out.'"

That is not a hiring problem. It is a project with no plan. The job ad was the only part with a deadline.

This is Part 3 of the series Utah business, run like a project. Part 1 was the start-up steps and Part 2 was money and support. Now the part that quietly decides whether any of it works: the people. I am a project and operations manager, not an employment lawyer, so the legal points below are pointers to official pages and not advice. Check each one before you act.

Step zero: do you need a hire?

When work piles up, hiring feels like the answer. Sometimes it is. Often it is not, and the difference is worth an hour before you write a single ad.

A simple test: is the problem volume or is it friction? Volume means that the process works but there is more of it than your team can handle. Friction means that people spend their day waiting, redoing, chasing and re-entering. Adding a person to a high-friction process adds another person who waits, redoes and chases. The process improvement guide shows how to map where the time goes in two weeks, and the capacity planning post shows how to find the real bottleneck. If the bottleneck is one step that one person does by hand, the cure may be a checklist or an automation and not a salary. Operations consulting: when to hire it has a ten-line test for exactly this.

Then ask a second question: is the need permanent, seasonal or a one-time push? A permanent need points to an employee. A seasonal peak might be handled with part-time help or overtime. A one-time push, such as a move or a launch, is closer to a project resource, and the staffing without the chaos guide helps you plan who does what when the load changes.

Write the role as a one-page charter

Most job descriptions are lists of everything the person might ever do. A better one is a short charter, the same one-page tool you use for a project. The project charter guide explains the idea. For a role, it has five parts:

1. The result. One sentence: what is different in the business because this person is here? "Orders leave the shop the day they are packed" is a result. "Assist with operations" is not.
2. Five tasks. The five things that take most of the week. If you cannot list five, the role is not clear yet.
3. Three numbers. How you will know it is going well: for example orders shipped on time, errors per hundred orders and the weekly count of customer messages answered within a day.
4. Who decides what. What the person can decide alone, what needs a check and who answers questions. A short RACI chart for the role settles it in ten minutes.
5. The first 90 days. Three milestones: what they will have learned by day 30, done alone by day 60 and improved by day 90.

This page does three jobs at once. It is your ad, because candidates respond to a clear result. It is your interview guide, because you can ask for examples of each task. And it is your first review, because the three numbers and the three milestones are already written.

Where to look in Utah

Start close to home and cheap, then widen the net:

• Your own network and your team. Referrals from people who know the work are the most reliable source in a small business, and they cost a thank-you. Ask your best two employees who they would hire.
• The state's job board. The Utah Department of Workforce Services runs a job board and employer services at jobs.utah.gov. Posting a job there is free for employers, according to the state's pages, but check the current terms.
• Schools. Utah's universities, technical colleges and community colleges have career offices and internship programs. A paid internship is a three-month interview for both sides.
• Your free advisers. The Utah SBDC and SCORE advisers talk to owners about hiring every week and can point you to local resources and training.
• Part-time and project-based help. For a defined piece of work, a contractor or an agency may fit. See the next section before you decide.

Employee or contractor: a question about the relationship

This is the point where well-meaning owners get into trouble. Calling someone a contractor does not make them one. The Internal Revenue Service describes three families of evidence: behavioral control (who directs how, when and where the work is done), financial control (who controls the business side: tools, expenses, profit or loss, other clients) and the relationship (contracts, benefits, how permanent it is). You can read the IRS page on independent contractors and employees. State agencies, including those in Utah, apply their own tests as well.

A practical habit: write down, for each person you pay, who decides the hours, who supplies the tools, whether they can work for others and whether the work is part of the core of your business. If your answers lean toward you controlling most of it, the person may be an employee whatever the contract says. When in doubt, ask an accountant or an attorney before the first payment, not after the first audit. A wrongly labeled worker is a risk you inherit, and for a small business it can be a large one. The contract risks post covers the same habit for any agreement: the label matters less than what the paper and the practice say together.

The day-one list

For employees, a short list of duties starts on the first day. The names below are the usual ones. Confirm each on the official page, because rules and thresholds change:

• Employment eligibility. Federal law requires you to complete Form I-9 for every new employee. The employee completes their part no later than the first day of work, and you complete yours within three business days of the first day. The form and instructions are on the USCIS I-9 page.
• Tax withholding. The employee completes a Form W-4 for federal withholding, and you register for the state withholding account if you do not already have one. The Utah State Tax Commission lists the steps.
• New hire reporting. Employers generally report new hires to the Utah Department of Workforce Services within 20 days of the first day worked. The online filing is on the DWS employer portal at jobs.utah.gov.
• Workers' compensation. The Utah Labor Commission says that, with a few exceptions, every employer must provide workers' compensation coverage for its employees, and the premium cannot be taken from wages. Read the commission's guide at laborcommission.utah.gov and talk to an insurance agent.
• Unemployment insurance. Employers register with DWS for unemployment insurance and pay contributions. The portal explains the steps.
• E-Verify. According to the Utah Documented Employment Registry, private employers with 150 or more employees must use a status verification system such as E-Verify. Smaller employers are not required to, as of the pages I read. Proposals to change the threshold have been discussed in the legislature, so check the current rule on the Department of Commerce page.

Print this list, attach it to the role charter and turn it into a checklist. It is a repeatable process, which makes it a good first candidate for the kind of simple automation I describe in seven workflows on autopilot: a reminder at each deadline and a place to keep the signed forms.

An illustrative example: the twelve-person shop

Here is a made-up business, to show the steps together. A twelve-person design-build shop in Utah County wants to hire a project coordinator.

• Volume or friction? The owner maps one week and finds that two project managers spend about eight hours each on scheduling emails and photo logs. That is friction. She first adds a shared schedule and a weekly look-ahead, which frees about half of those hours.
• Role charter. The coordinator's result: "every active job has a current schedule and a weekly look-ahead that the crew can read." Five tasks, three numbers (schedules updated by Monday noon, open questions older than three days, customer updates sent on time).
• Sourcing. Two referrals from the team, one posting on the state job board and one conversation with a local college's construction program.
• Decision. The work is permanent and the shop controls hours and tools, so the role is an employee role.
• Day-one list. The office manager runs the checklist and files the paperwork, and the coordinator starts with the first-week plan below.

The numbers in this example are illustrative. The sequence is the point: friction before volume, charter before ad, labels checked before the first payment, checklist before day one.

The first week, the first month, the first 90 days

Onboarding is where the promise of the hire is kept or lost. Treat it as a short project with milestones:

• Day one. A desk or a login that works, a person to sit with, the paperwork done and one small win by the end of the day: a first task finished with help.
• Week one. Meet the team and the customers they will serve, read the role charter together, shadow two real tasks and do one alone with review.
• Day 30. The first of the three milestones. You review it together in a 30-minute conversation, using the same structure every time: what went well, what was hard, what we will change.
• Day 60. The person runs a whole task alone. You review the first of the three numbers.
• Day 90. The person suggests one improvement, using the one-page habit from the kaizen guide. You decide together what the next 90 days look like.

A weekly 30-minute meeting during the first quarter, even a short one, is the cheapest retention tool I know. It is also a habit that every project benefits from, which is why the next part of the Project Focus series is about the weekly rhythm.

Keeping people

People leave for reasons you can often see coming: unclear expectations, no feedback, no progress, work that never ends and pay that has not been looked at. Most of these are management habits, not mysteries. Four are cheap:

1. Say what good looks like, in numbers, and say it again at each review.
2. Give feedback weekly, in small pieces, so that no review contains a surprise.
3. Show the path. Even in a small business, name the next role and what it takes to get there.
4. Check pay against the market once a year. Do not wait for the resignation letter to learn that you are behind. Use public job postings and your free advisers to compare.

When someone does leave, run a small lessons learned conversation. It is information, and you paid for it.

Mistakes to avoid

• Hiring to fix a process. Fix the process first, then hire into it.
• A vague role. If the charter is fuzzy, the person fills the gap with their own idea of the job.
• Choosing the label last. Decide employee or contractor from the facts, early.
• Skipping the checklist. One missed filing is rarely fatal. A habit of missing them is expensive.
• No first-week plan. The key without the plan is how one owner kept two of six people.
• Waiting for a perfect candidate. Define what is essential, what is learnable and hire for the first. You can train the second.

Check where you stand

Use the tool below to check your hiring readiness. Tick what is already true.

Interactive tool

Is your next hire ready to start?

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What to do this week

1. Write down one task that is eating the week of someone on your team. Is it volume or friction?
2. If you are hiring, write the one-page role charter: result, five tasks, three numbers.
3. List every person you pay and answer three questions for each: who decides the hours, who supplies the tools, can they work for others?
4. Build the day-one checklist from the official pages above and put the deadlines in a calendar.
5. Draft the 30-60-90 plan for the next hire, even if the hire is not yet approved.
6. Book a 30-minute conversation with your free SBDC adviser about the plan.

This post is general information, not legal, tax or employment advice. Rules change, so confirm each point on the official page or with a qualified professional, such as an accountant or an employment attorney. I did not use any customer data, and the example business is illustrative. For help turning hiring into a project that runs without drama, see my services or take the diagnostic.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to hire an employee, or can I use a contractor?

It depends on the relationship, not on what you call it. The IRS looks at behavioral control, financial control and the relationship between the parties, and Utah agencies apply their own tests. If you direct how, when and where the work is done and supply the tools, the person may be an employee. Ask an accountant or an attorney before you start paying.

What are the first things a Utah employer must do when hiring an employee?

Complete the federal Form I-9, collect a W-4, report the new hire to the Department of Workforce Services (generally within 20 days of the first day worked), have workers' compensation coverage in place and register for unemployment insurance. Employers with 150 or more employees must also use E-Verify, according to the state. Check each requirement on the official page, because rules can change.

Where can I post a job in Utah for free?

The Utah Department of Workforce Services runs a job board at jobs.utah.gov, and according to the state's employer pages posting is free of charge. Colleges and universities also have career offices that list openings, and your SBDC adviser can point you to local resources.

How long should onboarding take?

Plan for 90 days, with milestones at 30, 60 and 90. The first week matters most: a working login, a person to sit with, one small win on day one and a written plan. A weekly 30-minute meeting during the first quarter keeps small problems small.

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