When to Hire, Who to Hire, and Who to Hire Again

There is an old saying out there: “Never complain about having too much work to get through and always worry about having too little work to go around”. The problem with this seemingly simple concept is that most business owners end up throttling their business back instead of taking the plunge to hire that next person. They know they have a lot of work, but they don’t know what to do about it. They don’t even know what that new hire needs to look like.

Scaling a business isn't easy and if you are not careful you can scale yourself right into bankruptcy. It is important to know when it’s the right time to hire that next employee. Here are a few check points to help you know if your company is ready to hire that next employee:

·        The first red flag to an owner is usually having a laundry list of items to do that, time wise, will take more hours than you have in a week. This is a sign that the owner has a tendency to want full control of the business and hasn’t hired/delegated their task list out. If this is you, maybe it is time for another employee. 🤔

·        The quality of your company’s work is struggling because there is too much to do. You have some loyal customers but they are getting frustrated because they cannot get ahold of you or you are not handling the issues in an appropriate time range. If this is you, maybe it is time to hire another employee. 🤔

·        You have tons of work and are struggling to get everything done. If you were able to complete all of the jobs that need to be finished, you would have more than enough money to hire someone. If you hired someone to increase your capacity, you would have the ability to scale even more and address the quality issues that tend to arise when your existing team is feeling overwhelmed and over worked. If this is you, maybe it is time to hire another employee. 🤔

If any of the above statements resonate with you as a business owner, the natural next question is who to hire. It is typical in the business world to want to hire yourself. You got your company to where it is today and you would most likely be your own best friend so why not hire yourself??

As you might have guessed from the way I framed the question, that would be the wrong step to take. The best first step to take, once you have decided you are actually going to hire someone, is to look through your business and your processes for the bottlenecks. Where are things being held up? Do you need more leads? Sales? More fulfilled orders? All of these questions need to be asked and answered before you can really decide who to hire. These questions help you to discern what the job description should look like, the personality that best fits with the tasks that need to be delegated, and the urgency with which you should make the hire.

Even after all of that analysis, preparation, and work, inevitably you are going to make a hire that won’t work out. It’s just plain statistics. When that happens, it will be painful, there’s no question. In the face of this pain, the normal reaction is to complain about the labor market and not hire anyone ever again. Again, that would be the wrong response. Again, statistically speaking, no employee will stay with you forever so don’t expect people to hang around. It is normal in this day and age to start somewhere and then move on to bigger and better opportunities. Don’t lose heart, just learn from the experience and start the process over again. This is what we like to call staffing stamina.

If the ideas of knowing when to staff, who to staff, or who to staff again are areas in which you are struggling, please feel free to reach out and let us help you: https://www.adelbodencc.com/connect-with-us . We would be more than happy to give you a free analysis and help guide you onto your next hire.

Enjoy,