By Theresa Witham
My father is a doctor who has owned his own practice for almost 30 years. He’s a very successful doctor but has faced challenges related to the business side vs. the healing side of his work. He’s been lucky to have my mother, who studied accounting in college, helping to run the business. My dad is a good example of a business owner who is passionate about his work but not necessarily about business.
I think this is true for many small business owners. They have a deep passion for their product or service but don’t know much about building a business. As an avid knitter, I spend a lot of time in small, local yarn shops. It’s all too apparent that many of the store owners have a passion for knitting, yarn and creating beautiful objects with their hands but don’t know how to run a successful store. Inconvenient, 9-5 hours and truly awful customer service are very common.
Once again, I think credit unions could provide a service that many of their small business members truly need. Recently, I wrote about a seminar for Baltimore’s creative workforce and asked how CUs provide education to their business members. Rita R. Johnson, PHR, training and development coordinator at Fort Knox Federal Credit Union, Radcliff, Ky., responded, sharing that her CU offered a small business human resources seminar. What a great idea! The HR side of business is often the trickiest, especially for those who have no experience supervising and leading employees.
Johnson shared the outline from the seminar, which had five attendees, including a crafting business, cleaning business and a contractor:
1. Hiring Practices
a. Application
b. Setting up Interview
c. Interview
i. Good Questions
ii. Really Bad Questions
d. Selecting & Notifying Applicants
2. In-processing
a. Signed acknowledgment of pay rate
b. Complete the W-4
c. Complete the I-9
d. Signed acknowledgement of personnel policies (A policy is a written statement that reflects the employer’s standards and objectives relating to various employee activities and employment-related matters to include the EEO policy statement.)
e. Signed acknowledgement of company handbook (It provides guidance and information related to the company’s history, mission, values, policies, procedures and benefits in a written format.)
3. Kentucky Wage & Hour Poster
a. Minimum Wage
b. Overtime
c. Exceptions
d. Tipped Employees
e. Records
f. Rest Periods
g. Lunch Periods
h. Payment of Wages
i. Unlawful for Employer to withhold wage
4. What are “work hours”?
5. Wage Discrimination Because of Sex Poster
6. Kentucky Child Labor Laws
Keep the ideas coming! I love to hear about how credit unions can share their expertise with business members. It’s a much-needed service and a perfect, gentle cross-sell of the CU’s small business products and loans.
Theresa Witham is a CUES editor.
Attend the new CUES Advanced School of Business Lending™, May 11-15 in Miami.
Attend the three-part CUES School of Business Lending™.
Sign up for CUES Business Lending Edge, a free, quarterly e-newsletter.
