Is hiring employees worth it for a small home service business?

Even those of us that have employees still ask that question lol For sure, you will have less to worry about and less overhead without employees. You'll never have to deal with interpersonal problems and you will have complete control over your final product. You won't have to spend a second training someone, or cleaning up a mess that someone else left you. The reality is hiring people is hard, and pretty much everyone learns this the hard way. There are great coaching courses to give you direction but you're going to have bad hires and it's going to be a pain.

All that being said, you need to really assess what your goals are. For GC work, you should be able to easily clear six figures on your own BUT that's only if you work. You are 100% capped by time so you will only be able to make a certain amount. Also if you ever want a day off or you get hurt, your income will go down. Now depending on your trade, you could get around this with subs. Subs won't have all the expenses that come with an employee but here in California we have very strict sub contractor laws so you have to be mindful of that.

The reality is if your goal is to get out of the day to day, you HAVE TO have employees and as long as your financially ready, just educate yourself as best as you can and dig in. Hire slow, fire fast. Always pay on time, pay a good wage so you attract the best candidates, and expect to spend a lot of time training. It's a lot of responsability to be the captain of someone else's earnings so don't take that lightly but also don't let anyone mess with your money. Give them a chance but if you know they won't work out, free them up to be a better fit somewhere else.