TO BE “EMPLOYED” OR “NOT TO BE EMPLOYED”, THAT IS THE QUESTION

 

By “to be employed”, what ismeant is working in an organisation owned by another person. By “not to beemployed”, what is meant is working in an entity you own yourself; your ownbusiness. I assume it is a business.

What is being looked at here is an age-old question many young and even older people ask themselves. It looks an easy question to answer: “Work in my own business, of course.” Yes, indeed, but then, what is the reason not everyone is heading to their own organisation? So, the question becomes an easy one to decide on but not an easy one to act on.

Many people have been caught in the dilemma of difficulty choosing between keeping a job in another person’s organisation and embarking on their own ventures. The reason, rather, the reasons, are generally easy to see. In this article, a comparison is made between the two.

Let us look at the different aspects of working in an organisation one does not own and working in an organisation they do own. We do it under different themes. The lists of advantages and disadvantages are not exhaustive.

Main positive considerations going for “not being employed”

We look at just three:

-          Freedom. When the organisation is not yours, you have to be ready to adhere to the expectations of the owner or owners. These often include arriving at work and leaving at the time prescribed by the owner, not yourself; working by the stated rules. Besides, you would not like to hear the nastiest words of any workplace: if this does not happen, John, you’re fired!

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If you need freedom, start your own organisation. Here, you could set your own rules. For example, you could arrive at the office a little later than the others, if you can still effectively supervise them. Simply remember that there is no total freedom in any organisation. If you have to meet deadlines, for example, you have to sacrifice some freedom even in your very own business. However, you do indeed have a lot more leeway in your own institution.

 

-          Profits. This is probably the biggest motivation for one not being “not being employed”. When you are “employed”, as in working in an organisation you do not own, the profits belong to the owner of the business, and they pay you a bit from those profits.

If you are “not employed” (own the organisation), the profits are all yours.  They ultimately belong to you. Not only that. You decide how to use them.

-          Wealth building. It is often faster to become financially prosperous when you run a business. Few have become rich in a relatively short time depending on the income they get working in an enterprise they do not own. This is connected strongly to the preceding point concerning profits. The profits are yours and you can invest them in a business with great net earnings potential.

Challenges  

As you can see, it can be very rewarding not “to be employed”. In this sense, what is meant, of course, is being one’s own employer. But why is everyone not owning their own business, then? This is what we look at now. Even here, though, only three factors are examined.

-          You are on your own. If you run your own business and depend entirely on that for your own survival, you are essentially on your own. Working in another person’s institution almost always guarantees you a salary at the end of the month. The employer may also be paying your health insurance, and may have accommodated you, as is the case in socialistic economies.

 

If you own the organisation, you have to work the sweat to make the money. If you work lazily, you may not have anything at the end of the month. You will be in free fall. The possibility of starving is more real.

 

Fortunately, it is not a hopeless situation. you can minimise the possibility of adverse financial moments by ensuring you choose a business that deals in a product or service with good and steady demand. By “good”, I mean that you need to be able to sell profitable amounts all the time. By “steady”, I mean there must not be parts of the year when demand is low and parts when demand is good.

 

A product like motor vehicle tyres is likely to have stable demand throughout the year. On the other hand, umbrellas generally have healthy demand only at certain times of the year.

 

-          Capital limitations. A common factor preventing people from owning their own enterprises is the difficulty of raising the finances, for example, required to start business.

 

One way to avoid the capital problem is selecting a business with relatively low initial investment requirements. A business requiring a factory is normally a big financial undertaking. On the other hand, a stationary retail shop is unlikely to place so much pressure on finances. Any amount of stationary can be stocked initially, and the quantity can increase as the business makes more money. As regards the shop, a small trading area could be rented at the start, and when the business expands, one could look for bigger space.

  

One, alternatively, can look for sponsors specialising in helping people with financial limitations who want to start businesses. Some give grants. Grants are not to be paid back. They are not loans.

 

-          Lack of business training. Basic business education can serve as a source of confidence and spur one into starting an enterprise. Insufficient business knowledge can have the effect of holding a person back. If you find yourself in this situation, it should not be a real challenge in today’s age of digitally available information on the internet. There are many resources online that provide basic business knowledge. So I guess this is hardly a problem now.

 

Conclusions

If you have been wondering whether or not to quit your present job and simply run and be sustained by your own enterprise, the brief coverage of the anticlines and synclines above could give you an idea what some of the main issues to look at are. It is indeed a simple overview, but, hopefully, it is adequate as a starting point in an often important decision-making situation.