Hiring Your First Employee in a Trade Business: Real Costs, Charge-Out Rates and What Changes

The first hire is the scariest maths in a trade business: someone else's mortgage payment leaving your account every week, whether the work's there or not. Done right, it's also the single biggest jump in what your business can earn. The difference is knowing the real numbers before the first payslip — and having the boring systems (timesheets, permissions, scheduling) ready on day one, not month three.

The real cost is well above the hourly rate

The advertised wage is the start, not the total. On top sit superannuation (12%), workers compensation premiums, annual and personal leave for permanents (or casual loading instead), public holidays, and the gear — tools, uniform, phone, a seat in the vehicle. Then the quiet one: unbillable time. Travel between jobs, supplier runs, rained-off mornings and training all get paid but never invoiced. By the time it's all counted, an employee's true cost per productive hour lands well above the number in the job ad. Do that arithmetic for your actual hire before you promise anyone a start date.

Set the charge-out rate from the cost rate

Once you know the true cost per productive hour, the charge-out rate is a decision, not a guess: cost rate, plus a share of overheads, plus the margin you're in business to make. Sanity-check it against your market, but don't start from what competitors charge — start from what your worker costs you. This number matters twice, because it also reprices your quotes: labour lines now need to reflect who's actually doing the work, and a job quoted at your solo rate but delivered by your employee carries a different margin than you think.

Timesheets from day one, without the nagging

Solo, you could carry the hours in your head. With an employee, unrecorded hours are uncosted hours — and uncosted hours make every job look more profitable than it is. The habit to build in week one: hours recorded against each job (not just 'worked today'), real start and stop times, and a flag for billable versus not. Make it a two-tap job on their phone, or the habit won't survive contact with a busy Tuesday.

Decide what they see before they log in

Your prices, margins and client list are the crown jewels, and your new tradie doesn't need them to hang a door. Decide the boundaries up front: can they see what jobs are worth? Other people's schedules? Client contact details? The clean default for a first field hire is their own jobs, their own calendar, job notes and photos — no pricing, no financials. You can widen access as their role grows; winding it back later is far more awkward.

Day-one setup in Taskr

Taskr's team features are built for exactly this moment: invite your new starter by email, give them the field-worker role, and they see only their own jobs — schedule, site notes, photos and timers, with pricing and client financials hidden (adjustable per person if you want to grant more). Their hours run on per-appointment start/stop timers that hold the clock through a page refresh, and job costing values their time at their real cost and charge rates, so every job's P&L reflects who did the work. Seats sync to your subscription automatically as the team grows. Get the systems in place on the 14-day free trial — before their first Monday.