Finance to hire staff: carry a new hire until they pay their way

Every business hits the point where the owner is the bottleneck. Jobs get turned away, quotes go out late, and the busiest months feel like the most dangerous ones. The fix is usually another pair of hands — but a new hire costs money from their first day and may not pay their way for months.

Finance to hire staff exists to bridge exactly that gap. Used well, it lets you hire slightly ahead of demand, so the growth is there to capture when the person is ready.

What does a new hire really cost?

The wage is only the starting point. Before you work out whether a hire will pay for itself, build the full monthly cost:

Cost item	What to allow for
Wages	At least the relevant award rate. The National Minimum Wage is $26.44 an hour from 1 July 2026, and award rates rose 4.75 per cent.
Superannuation	12% of ordinary time earnings, now paid with each pay run under Payday Super.
Workers compensation	Compulsory insurance, priced by your state scheme and industry.
Leave and on-costs	Annual and personal leave, public holidays, and payroll tax if your wages bill passes your state’s threshold.
Tools and set-up	Uniform, laptop or vehicle, software licences, training.
Recruitment	Advertising, agency fees or your own time interviewing.

Add these up line by line for the specific role. Together, super and on-costs add a meaningful slice on top of the base wage, and the exact figure depends heavily on the role, your state and your industry.

How long until a new employee pays for themselves?

Split roles into two kinds:

• Direct earners — tradespeople, technicians, salespeople, clinicians, chefs on a busy line. Their output is billable, so you can estimate the extra gross profit they generate. Once they’re up to speed, many cover their full cost within months.
• Leverage roles — office managers, estimators, supervisors, bookkeepers. They don’t bill directly but free up someone who does (often you). Count the extra revenue the freed-up time produces.

The trap is the ramp-up. A new apprentice, a new sales rep or a new clinician rarely hits full productivity in week one. Plan for three to six months of partial output, sometimes longer for specialist roles. That’s the period where borrowed funds do their work. Our new hire break-even guide shows the calculation step by step.

A worked example (illustrative)

A plumbing business turns away about $20,000 of work a month. The owner wants to hire a second licensed plumber at a full monthly cost of around $9,500 including super, insurance, a van lease and tools. Jobs carry a gross margin of roughly 55% after materials, so a fully booked plumber should generate about $11,000 of gross profit a month — a monthly boost of about $1,500 over the cost of the role, before counting the owner’s freed-up quoting time.

The catch: it will likely take three months for the new plumber to be fully booked and working efficiently. Say they fill a quarter of their capacity in month one, half in month two and three-quarters in month three. Across that ramp-up the business would be about $12,000 behind before the hire starts contributing. Funding sized to that gap — rather than a large lump sum — keeps the cash position steady while the new role finds its feet.

Check your own numbers in the Growth ROI calculator by entering the hire’s monthly cost as a running cost and the extra work as revenue. If it stacks up, ask what funding your hire qualifies for.

Which funding suits hiring?

• Line of credit. Draw each month to top up payroll during the ramp-up, then repay as the new hire’s work comes in. Ideal when the gap is temporary.
• Unsecured business loan. A fixed sum sized to the ramp-up months, often alongside other growth costs such as a second van. See unsecured growth funding.
• Property-secured loan. Suits larger hiring plans — a whole new crew or a second site’s team — where a bigger amount and longer term make repayments comfortable.

Whichever you choose, match the term to how long the role takes to pay back. Repayments that finish before the benefit arrives just move the squeeze to a different month.

What should you have in place before hiring?

The obligations are straightforward but need to be ready on day one. Before the new person starts, business.gov.au and the Fair Work Ombudsman point employers to these essentials:

1. Confirm the right award and classification, and the employment type (full-time, part-time, casual or fixed term).
2. Give the Fair Work Information Statement before, or as soon as possible after, they start.
3. Collect a tax file number declaration and offer a super choice form.
4. Pay through Single Touch Payroll-enabled software.
5. Hold workers compensation cover before the first shift.
6. Keep employee records for seven years.

With Payday Super, super contributions must reach the employee’s fund within seven business days of payday, so build that into every pay-run cash forecast.

How do you know it’s time to hire?

Look for patterns, not a single busy week: work consistently declined or delayed, the owner working in the business every evening, rising overtime, slipping quality or response times. Our guide to signs you’re ready to hire covers the warning lights in more detail.

Hire with confidence — see what you qualify for

Growing a team is one of the most rewarding moves a business owner can make, and one of the most cash-hungry in the early months. If you’ve worked out who you need and what they’ll unlock, we can help fund the gap while they get up to speed.

The form takes about a minute, and there’s no credit check involved at that first step. Your details stay with our team rather than being sprayed around a pile of lenders, and a real person will call to understand the role, the ramp-up and your cash flow. Answer accurately and we can match you with the right option first up.

Check your hiring funding options →