Chances are if your business becomes successful, it will grow and, at some point, you may need some help on a temporary or permanent basis.

Having other people working for you can be a great blessing and a great burden. Good employees can be a business's biggest asset, but the legal issues and concerns that come with having others work for you can almost make it seem like more trouble than it's worth.

The key to success in getting and dealing with workers in your business is to treat them as an investment, because that's what they are. Every time you hire, train, pay, discipline, or terminate an employee or other kind of worker, you're making an investment in your business, just as you would in buying and maintaining an expensive piece of equipment.

But people are usually more complex than machines, so use the discussions in this module to help you negotiate the slippery slope of being a boss:

• Recruiting and hiring assists you in figuring out what you need done, deciding whether to hire someone or use an independent contractor, and advertising for, interviewing, screening, and hiring an employee.
• Paying your employees guides you through the ins and outs of paying your employees, including step-by-step instructions on how to go from a hiring an employee to the point where you hand over the paycheck. We'll also give you tips on deciding how much to pay and how to negotiate salary with employees.
• Benefits for your workers introduces you to the wide world of benefits, including time-off benefits, health benefits, life insurance, disability insurance, and retirement plans. You'll also get some ideas about how to manage, administer, and negotiate benefits plans you offer to employees.
• Rules for your workers discusses the various aspects of creating order in your workplace by helping you figure out which rules you need, which rules you're required by law to have, how to communicate rules, and how to write them using our special policy creation tools.
• Motivating and rewarding your workers helps you keep employees feeling good and enthusiastic about working for you by showing you how to detect and fend off problems with morale, turnover, productivity, and employee loyalty.
• Terminating workers navigates you through the unpleasant tasks of having to let a worker go, from planning the termination meeting to dealing with unemployment claims.

• Disciplining your workers aids you in one of the toughest parts of being a boss — disciplining workers — by giving you scripts and tools to help you coach the wayward employee and document any disciplinary actions.