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

I think it comes down to trading your time and energy for other problems. When I'm out on the field scooping, I'm the most expensive scooper because the value of my time is so much higher compared to just hiring someone at $20 an hour to scoop dog poop. If you hire someone, you need to be filling up that extra time you just made with higher leverage activities that drive revenue and growth for your business (networking, following up on leads, working on projects that you know will make the business more efficient or more money).

But having employees just means you're dealing with their issues as well, and it's a bigger burden since now you have their family relying on you to always "show up".