With spring on the way (we hope!), hiring season won’t be far behind. If you want that hiring rush to go smoothly, set clear expectations, and keep great employees around, it all starts with strong onboarding.

And no—onboarding doesn’t end when HR collects the last signature. That’s just the starting line.

Onboarding is often treated like a box to check, but it’s a powerful (and frequently overlooked) opportunity. A thoughtful onboarding process introduces new hires to your company’s values and vision, lays out training and development plans, and helps them understand not just what they’ll be doing, but why it matters. Employees should spend time with HR, owners, managers, and crew leaders so they get a well-rounded picture of how your company operates and what success looks like.

Training should be baked into onboarding—and it shouldn’t stop once an employee is assigned to a crew. Ongoing training is proven to improve efficiency, safety, and employee retention. When people know how...

Option 2 – Banking after-tax dollars rather than hours

Some of you have been asking about the banked hours system and how to handle the taxes on the banked hours income for the employee. So here’s another option. In this scenario, we’re not using the number of hours the employee works as our benchmark, we’re using the take-home dollar amount that the employee requires. 

For this scenario, let’s say you want to guarantee 30 hours per week for an employee that makes $25/hour. The pre-tax amount is $750.00. The after-tax amount (assuming 18% tax) is $615.00. The employee will take home $615.00 each week, as long as they work 30 hours. Any amount over $615.00 is placed in a separate account and can be transferred to the employee on weeks when they don’t work as many hours. Here’s an example:

Here's an example of an employee's hours:

• Week 1 - employee works 20 hours @ $25.00/hr = $500.00 (pre-tax), employee has no extra income in the “bank”, so the employee’s cheque is for $410.00 aft...

Have you considered implementing a banked hours system for your core staff through the winter season?

It’s hard to live on an hourly wage during the snow season. Your pay is dependent on the weather, which is unpredictable. Moving away from a weather dependent pay scale removes the stress about money and allows you to keep your good employees.

Here's an example of how the banked hours system would work: 

• For the winter season, you’ve decided to guarantee your staff a minimum of 35 hours per week. 
• If the employee works 30 hours in a week, they will get paid for 35. The extra 5 hours (that they've been paid for but didn't work) is banked. 
• If in the next week they work 45 hours, they will get paid for 40 hours, because the 5 banked hours will be deducted from their paycheque. 
• If in the following week, they work 45 hours, they will get paid for 45 hours because there are no banked hours. 
• They will always get paid for a minimum of 35 hours, even if they don't work 35 hour in...

When do I need to hire someone to help with my books?

Who do I hire?

Do I need a book keeper, a controller, both?

You’re not alone in the questions you are asking yourself - This is one of the most common questions I get asked when we host our BOOST events. We want to ensure we are always giving you the best information, so we reached out to a friend who specializes in finance, Nathan (@southbrookconsulting), and he gave us a tonne of incredible information to share with you.

First up is hiring a bookkeeper, or as Nathan recommends calling them, an Accounting Associate. Traditionally this is someone who takes care of AR/ AP, invoicing, payroll, wsib, quickbooks, creating cheques and recording everything that comes in. Most are not accountants, will also do administration and are the 1st touch point for anything to related to finances in the company. 

Cost for hiring is around $18/30 per hour or $40-45,000 as salary and is for sure necessary around $1 million in sales. Nathan recom...