A growing trade business reaches this evening sooner or later: the work is booked, the crew is busy, and the owner is at the kitchen table at nine at night returning calls, typing estimates and chasing last month’s invoices. The question that follows is when to hand that work to someone else, and to whom. This article covers how to tell whether the hours are worth moving, what federal pay data says the job costs, and the tax and classification rules behind the three usual first hires: a part-time employee, a remote helper and a spouse on the payroll.
Count the office hours before you hire
For one ordinary week, write down every block of office time: answering and returning calls, booking estimate visits, writing estimates up, ordering materials, invoicing, collecting, permits and the books. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ description of what secretaries and administrative assistants do reads like that list: answer telephones and take messages or transfer calls, schedule appointments and update calendars, handle the mail, prepare invoices or reports, maintain databases and filing systems, and perform basic bookkeeping.
Then sort the week into two piles. Some of it only you can do: pricing a job, walking it with the customer, deciding who gets hired. The rest can be done by someone else from a written procedure. The second pile is the job description. For the phone part, a one-week log of answered and missed calls is laid out in Your Answer Rate.
The test is what happens to the hours you get back. Say a remodeler logs 15 office hours a week and could fill 10 of them with billable work or sales visits. Those 10 hours are what pays for the helper. If the freed time would only turn into shorter days, that can still be worth buying, but it is a cost to plan for, not a source of profit.
What the job pays
The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, using May 2025 wage data, gives these national medians (half of workers earn more, half less):
These are national figures; pay where you work may run higher or lower. BLS also notes that most people in these occupations work full time, so a part-time opening should state its hours and days plainly. Writing a Help-Wanted Ad covers the rest of the ad, and some states require a pay range in it (Pay Ranges in Job Ads).
Option one: a part-time employee
Publication 15 is plain that if the relationship is employment, it does not matter whether the employee works full or part time. The hiring paperwork is the same as for anyone else: a Form W-4, a Form I-9, your state’s new-hire report and a W-2 at year end, step by step in Hiring Your First Employee. The federal employer taxes for 2026 are Social Security at 6.2% and Medicare at 1.45% from you, matching the same amounts withheld from the employee, and federal unemployment tax (FUTA) at 6.0% of the first $7,000 of each worker’s wages, or 0.6% after the full credit for state unemployment tax.
The Fair Labor Standards Act matters too. An hourly office helper covered by it, and not exempt, who works more than 40 hours in a workweek is owed overtime at not less than one and a half times the regular rate. You must record the hours worked each day and each workweek; the Labor Department accepts any timekeeping method that is complete and accurate, and says to keep payroll records for at least three years and time cards for two.
Say an electrician hires a helper for 20 hours a week at $23 an hour, close to the administrative-assistant median. A year of it costs this much before state taxes and insurance:
| Part-time office helper, 2026 | A year |
|---|---|
| Wages: 20 hours × 52 weeks × $23 | $23,920 |
| Social Security, employer share (6.2%) | $1,483 |
| Medicare, employer share (1.45%) | $347 |
| FUTA (0.6% of the first $7,000) | $42 |
| Total before state taxes and insurance | $25,792 |
That is just under $500 a week. State unemployment tax and workers’ compensation come on top, at rates your state and your carrier set; see Workers’ Comp: When Your State Requires It.
Option two: a remote helper, and whether they are your employee
Many owners look for a remote assistant who answers calls and email from home. Working remotely does not settle the classification question. The IRS says a person who works for you from somewhere other than your office is your employee under the common-law rules if you can control what will be done and how it will be done, even if the worker can choose to work remotely. It weighs three kinds of evidence: behavioral control (do you direct how the work is done), financial control (how the worker is paid, who supplies the tools, whether expenses are reimbursed) and the type of relationship (written contracts, benefits, whether the work continues and is a key part of the business).
The Labor Department asks a related question for minimum wage and overtime: is the worker economically dependent on you for work, or in business for themself? Its Fact Sheet #13 says the title a worker is given is not relevant, and that signing an independent contractor agreement does not make someone an independent contractor. The fact sheet follows a 2024 rule that the department says remains in effect for private lawsuits, while its own enforcement follows Field Assistance Bulletin 2025-1. On February 26, 2026 the department proposed a new rule on employee or independent contractor status; its rulemaking page lists that proposal and no final rule.
In practice, someone who answers your phone during hours you set, follows your script, works only for you and expects to keep doing it looks like an employee under both tests. A bookkeeping practice with its own clients and its own software, billing you monthly for a defined job, looks like an independent business. If you are unsure, either you or the worker can file IRS Form SS-8 for a determination; the IRS says the answer may take at least six months. Several states use stricter tests than these, covered in 1099 or W-2? And if what you need is mostly the phone, an answering service is another route; Answering Services for Contractors compares what they charge.
Option three: your spouse on the payroll
If your spouse already does the office work unpaid, putting them on the payroll is the one hire that needs no interview. Publication 15 sets the federal rules for paying a spouse:
So the federal tax saving is small: FUTA at 0.6% of $7,000 is $42 a year. The better reasons to pay a spouse are that the books then show the real cost of running the office, and that the wages carry Social Security tax in the spouse’s own name. State unemployment rules for family members vary, so check with your state’s agency. How a one-owner LLC fits the federal family rules is explained in Hiring Your Kids in the Business.
The pay has to hold up. Publication 334 says employee pay is deductible on Schedule C only if it is reasonable and is for services performed. Pay a spouse what you would pay someone else for the same hours, keep a timesheet, and run the pay through payroll like any other employee’s.
If your spouse is really a co-owner, the picture changes. Publication 334 says spouses who jointly own and operate an unincorporated business and share its profits and losses are partners and file a partnership return, Form 1065. The exception is a qualified joint venture: if both spouses materially participate, are the only owners, file a joint return and do not hold the business through a state law entity such as an LLC, they can elect to file two Schedules C and two Schedules SE instead, which the IRS says still gives each spouse credit for Social Security earnings on which retirement benefits are based. Couples who own a business wholly as community property, in the states Publication 334 lists (Arizona, California, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin), may treat it as either a sole proprietorship or a partnership.
Set up the job before the first day
General information, not legal or tax advice. Rules change and vary by state; check with the agency named above or a professional for your situation.