When to Hire New Staff
‘Hire when it hurts.’
‘Hire slow, fire fast.’
There are literally hundreds of hackneyed axioms on hiring out there. Over the years, we’ve tried most of them and none of them worked for us.
What Didn’t Work When Hiring
As we bootstrapped, we were cautious on hiring in the beginning and waited too long. So when we finally did, we needed them to pull their weight on day one and didn’t have time to train them.
That didn’t work.
We tried adding complicated steps to the application process to weed out people that couldn’t follow directions.
That worked, but that didn’t help us find good team members.
We tried using a staffing agency to handle the process for us and find good people.
That didn’t work.
What we learned is that we can’t do what other people do – we had to build our own process and not just try doing what they do. So we took a first principles approach to hiring.
Building Your Hiring Process
When you boil it down, a business in any industry has three main tasks to generate revenue:
- Getting the work
- Doing the work
- Keeping customers (& staff) happy
If you’re hiring someone, you have to figure out where they fit within those three tasks. Getting the work (sales & marketing), doing the work (any and all ops-related tasks), keeping customers (& staff) happy (account managers, customer service, HR, etc).
Figure out what you want that person’s role to be and make sure you have the process documented before you start the hiring process.
Then, look for where you want to advertise your job opening. Look at Indeed, your own website, any relevant trade publications, etc. In the ad, make sure you are describing precisely what you are looking for.
When to Hire New Staff For Your SMB
We’ve found that the best time to hire is when we have added 6 months of their salary onto our balance sheet. If we’re hiring a junior graphic designer, hiring when we have the ability (even if we don’t have the need) allows us the luxury of hiring people that want to work with us and not only hire for experience. Then, if our senior designer takes a new opportunity (or if our workload grows and they’re stretched thin) we have someone on deck to pick up the slack and don’t have to scramble to cover.
Easy, simple, neat. And allows us to keep our focus on working on the business and not for the business.
