How to hire staff as a self-employed professional

Great news, your business is growing! But, you are about to reach the point where you cannot do everything alone... Or perhaps you have landed a big project and temporarily need a helping hand. What can you do? Here are 5 solutions for self-employed professionals looking to expand their capacity, ranging from flexible to structural solutions.

1. Hire a temporary employee

There are 2 ways to hire a temporary employee: as a temporary worker or as a payroller. Temporary workers are employed by an employment agency. You pay the agency, not the worker. The agency handles the application process and provides the employee.

Want more control? Choose payrolling. In this case, your worker is employed by a payroll company and you enter into an agreement with the company. However, you do get to recruit your own staff and set their salary.

Both the employment agencies and payroll companies take care of payrolling, employment contracts, annual statements, payroll administration and pension plans. You will have to pay for the services they provide. The client does keep some responsibilities, such as ensuring safe working conditions. Note that you may have to deal with hirer's liability.

2. Temporarily hire a self-employed professional

If you plan to temporarily work with another self-employed professional, you can hire them temporarily. There are 3 ways:

• Directly. Hire another self-employed professional without involving a third party. Together, you are responsible for making arrangements about your working relationship. Figure out whether you want to use a model agreement. A model agreement is a good way to show the tax authorities that your relationship is not a case of false self-employment. As a result, you will not have to pay wage taxes and social insurance contributions.
• Through an intermediary, such as a secondment agency. The agency employs the self-employed professional and seconds them to you. The self-employed professional invoices the intermediary.
• Through a payroll company. The payroll company pays the self-employed professional.

3. Long-term collaboration with another self-employed professional

Do you plan to start a long-term collaboration with another self-employed professional? Consider starting a new company with your partner. Options include a vennootschap onder firma (general partnership, vof), maatschap (partnership), coöperatie (cooperative), or besloten vennootschap (private limited company, bv). You can either change your company’s current legal form or start a new legal entity together.

4. Employ staff yourself

You can also decide to employ staff yourself on a temporary or open-ended contract. If you cannot guarantee that there will be enough work for an employee, enter into an on-call contract. This can be a zero-hours contract or a min-max contract. A somewhat more permanent solution is to employ staff yourself. Employees can work part-time or full-time and have a temporary or open-ended contract. You can also employ a worker that previously worked for you through an employment agency. This is usually free after a certain amount of time has elapsed, depending on what was arranged with the agency.

When you decide to hire staff for the first time, you will get several new legal obligations. Your legal status will change from self-employed to employer, for example.

5. Ask your partner and children for help

Remember that you can always ask people close to you to lend a helping hand. Perhaps your partner or children can temporarily help out in your company. Make sure that the compensation you pay your partner suits your personal situation and business situation.