Category: Human Resource

Article Contributed by Susan Ranford

The beauty of a small business is that it can be done by one person alone. If you’re selling items on Amazon, you may not need more than one person, or you may just need to work with your co-founders. Hiring an employee is something you may associate with bigger businesses and brick-and-mortar locations.

However, there (hopefully) comes a time in any small business venture when you’ll need to make your first hire. Employees exist for a reason, and not hiring somebody when your business needs one can strain your workflow. Here are some signs that it’s time to hire.

You Can’t Grow Your Business Because You’re Too Busy Maintaining It

There comes a time when you’re doing so much work for your business that you feel like you have multiple full-time jobs.

Whether you spend too much time doing the paperwork, campaigning on social media, making sales, or anything else that could be done by a new employee, you’re not getting things done efficiently. And this can prevent you from making real expansions and decisions for your business.

There’s a difference between not wanting to do the work because you’re lazy and passing the work to someone else because you want to focus on the growth of your business. Think about your workload and the potential you’re missing out on. It’s probably the right time to hire an employee.

You Can Afford it

An employee cuts into your profits.

You have to spend money to recruit an employee. You need to pay them a fair wage, deal with taxes and insurance if required, and so on. The cost will depend on what kind of business you have, but it’s going to cost you. But, when you’re working on your business while the employee does the tasks you don’t have time for, you can end up making the money back and then some.

So if you have the money to pay for an employee, and you’re sure you need one, then do it.

And that’s all there is to it when deciding if your business needs an employee. If it’s work that needs to be done consistently that you can’t find the time to do, and if you can afford someone to do it for you, then hire an employee.

With that said, here a few tips to finding the best fit:

Know Your Laws and Figure Out a Plan

As you’re about to hire, look up the federal and state labor laws and see what you need to do it on the up-and-up.

You’ll need an employee identification number, certain forms, and anything else that’s required by law. You’ll also need to figure out if your employee will need insurance, and you should come up with a schedule and a vacation plan.

Post a Good Job Description

Post your help wanted ad on any outlet possible. If your job is local, you may want to stick to the local job boards as this will help narrow down your applicants to people with reasonable interest in the job.

When you write the description, you need to explain what you need, and do it clearly. However, don’t post so much information you end up boring people. When it comes to job requirements, be reasonable but leave the door open for less experienced candidates who may still have something to bring.

Make Sure Your Employee is Invested in the Company

Whenever you’re interviewing potential candidates, you want someone who legitimately wants to be a part of your company and doesn’t see it as another job. Maybe they love supporting small businesses and want to be a part of something bigger. Ask the important questions:

• Why do you want to work for my company?
• What do you think would help the company grow?
• What are your biggest accomplishments?

These can help you separate the willing employees from the lazy. Don’t settle for the first employee you can find, as this may end up blowing up in your face. If your employee isn’t productive, it will cost you more than you thought.

Treat Your Employee Right

Finally, your employee’s expectations out of you should be reasonable, and same for you and your employee. Don’t overwork your employee for little pay, and don’t forget to reward good behavior. Challenge your employee, listen to them, and be a team leader instead of a grouchy boss.

Hiring your first employee can be an intimidating task, but it’s a leap every company will have to make if they want to grow. If you can do it, do it, and make sure you find yourself a good employee who will help your company propel into the limelight, whether locally or around the world.

Bio:

Susan Ranford is an expert on job market trends, hiring, and business management. She is the Community Outreach Coordinator for New York Jobs. In her blogging and writing, she seeks to shed light on issues related to employment, business, and finance to help others understand different industries and find the right job fit for them.

Article Cintributed by Jenn Livingston

When you own a business, the best way to set yourself up for success is to surround yourself with a talented team. The most successful companies are places where the cream of the crop rises to the top. They are places where talented people flock because they are treated well. If you are looking to boost your business to new heights, use the following tips to put together an elite workforce that makes you look good.

1. Stop Making Your Job Announcements Read Like Novels

In the 21st century where attention spans trend ever downward, you have to change with the times or be left behind. Nobody wants to read your two-page job announcement. You will turn off many talented applicants if you make your hiring notice too long. Make it short, punchy and designed to capture the attention of people who have been brought up in the Information Age.

2. Make a Checklist

You will never have a great team unless you give detailed thought to the type of employees you want to hire. You should put together a checklist of all the attributes that you want in an employee. When you have a checklist to follow during the hiring process, it makes it much easier to ensure you find the perfect hires to complement your team and implement your company vision.

3. Cast a Wide Net

If you want to land the big fish, you need to cast a wide net. There are lots of ideal employees waiting for you to employ them, but you have to make sure they apply before you can hire them. The best way to ensure you get a large pool of talented is to use a multi-faceted approach to attract candidates.

Start by advertising across multiple fronts. Advertise both locally and nationally to get as many qualified applicants as possible. Network to find even more job candidates. Make use of your social media connections to find applicants.

Don’t scoff at the power of recruiters to find amazing employees for your company either. They are able to find candidates that you might never have been connected to otherwise. Using all three of these channels to attract applicants is your ticket to getting the ideal candidate pool for your job openings.

4. Improve Your Interviews

Even when you get a great pool of candidates, you still need to be able to find the brightest jewels to shine in your firm. Without good interviewing skills, it is a matter of chance whether you will get the eight candidates. By honing your skills interviewing candidates, you will be able to narrow the candidate pool down to the pick of the litter. 

5. Take Stock of Your Reviews

Like it or not, your reviews on sites like Glassdoor and Indeed can have a huge effect on the quality of the applicants you receive. If you have a number of negative reviews, it will turn off a huge segment of the job force. You need to keep your profiles updated on these rating sites. It is critical to respond to negative reviews in a respectful, thoughtful manner. This will go a long way towards redeeming your appearance in the eyes of potential employees.

6. Have a Succession Plan

You need to plan for hiring new employees before your old ones retire. Implementing a succession management plan will ensure you do not have a lapse in production when your employees retire. You will find you keep your company smoothly flowing forward will happen when you replace your veteran employees with talented newcomers.

If you follow these six tips, you will be blown away by the talent level that starts to flood your workplace. Taking the time to perfect your hiring process will pay huge dividends. When you surround yourself with a strong team, you will be poised to take your company to the extreme level of success that you deserve.

As an entrepreneur, hiring a new employee to join your ranks can be both exciting and nerve-racking. You may be thrilled to see your business grow to the point where you need to bring on extra help, but you may also be concerned about hiring the right individual to assist you. After all, making a poor hiring decision in this early stage in the game can be devastating to your business reputation, your finances and more. If you are preparing to start looking for a skilled and qualified candidate to join your business, focus on these helpful tips to guide your efforts.

Create a List of Job Duties and Responsibilities

While your business may be small currently, you should still approach the hiring process in a professional way. This means that you should begin the process by developing a reasonable list of job duties and responsibilities that you want the individual to handle for you. The list should be suitable for the type of position that you are hiring for, including based on the job title as well as whether the position is full-time or part-time.

Develop a Competitive Compensation Package

Many job seekers look for a position that has excellent compensation and benefits alike. They may also look for growth potential and the ability to make great industry connections. Because your business is smaller, you may not be able to offer the same types of benefits available at a larger company. For example, your small business may not offer health insurance or a retirement plan. To compensate for the lack of benefits that may be available with other positions, you should plan to offer a reasonably higher salary than what is average or typical for the position. This is essential if you want to attract and retain top talent at a startup.

Confirm Skills and Credentials

Many job seekers spend considerable time tweaking their resume until it glows, and some will unfortunately artificially inflate their level of skills, training or experience in order to be considered for better positions. Because it is critical that you hire only qualified applicants, consider creating interview questions or even interview tests to confirm skills and credentials before you extend an offer of employment.

Be Transparent About Current and Future Needs

During the interview process, job seekers will be examining your business and the position to determine if they want to pursue the opportunity. This means that you should use the interview process to screen candidates as well as to sell the position and the company to top candidates. Be clear with candidates about the current duties and responsibilities, but talk about realistic growth potential and how the position may change in the future. For example, the individual may take on a managerial role when other employees are added to the department.

Seek Hiring Assistance When Needed

The hiring process can be tedious and stressful for busy owners and managers. Many entrepreneurs are swamped with the process of running their business on their own or with minimal help from a small team, and finding extra time in their day to review resumes and to interview candidates can be challenging. A smart idea may be to hire a recruiter to assist with the process. The recruiter can screen resumes, conduct qualifications tests and send only the most qualified candidates to you for a final interview.

Creating new positions in your company and expanding your team are signs of business growth and prosperity. However, making a poor hiring decision can impact customer service, company reputation, client satisfaction, your own available time during the day and more. You simply cannot afford to make a poor hiring decision when your company is still young and struggling to grow every step of the way. With this in mind, consider how these important tips can assist you in making a great hiring decision for your current and future job openings.

When it comes to women in the workplace and their continuing struggle to break through the glass ceiling, self-advocacy remains one of the biggest barriers in the way.

To some extent, it’s an issue of perspective. Self-advocacy is commonly viewed as being self-promotional. Read that as “pushy.” Or boastful. Or self-aggrandizing. That’s old-school thinking, of course, but thinking that still manages to remain all-too common in many workplaces.

That negative coloring aside, self-advocacy is the ability to articulate one’s needs and what is necessary to meet them. And it’s an important skill for anyone in the workplace to develop, women and men alike.

It’s a skill that can be learned and practiced, but it needs a foundation to be built on. Author and educator Mary Ellen Copeland says one of the cornerstones is belief in oneself – having self-esteem and confidence in your worth. Another building block is your knowledge of and confidence in what you want and are advocating for. It helps to be articulate – to be able to express yourself clearly, but, more importantly, to assert yourself clearly.

Knowing those essentials and actually being able to put them into action, however, is an issue. Especially for women. And it doesn’t get easier, even when women have advanced to senior management positions, according to a 2013 study by gender intelligence leader Barbara Annis with Thomson Reuters.

The 326 women leaders surveyed across North America said that their top career challenges were both in “navigating the system and accessing informal networks. The challenge is self-promotion, advocating for themselves and expressing their talents.”

One of the issues is that while women may talk about their past successes, they fail to tie those successes to their future potential, according to Zabeen Hirji, Chief Human Resources Officer at Royal Bank of Canada (RBC).

To make that link takes an understanding and articulation of your value proposition – or how you deliver as a team member or leader in a way that yields positive business outcomes. What’s more powerful in communicating that than a direct self-promotional message, though, is to position yourself to help others achieve their goals through efforts and actions that showcase your accomplishments and potential.

Other essentials on the road to successful self-advocacy include understanding the dynamics of strategic relationships and having a commitment to build them. Knowing who’s got the power and influence in your sphere – or the one you want to reach – is one thing. It takes political savvy to become a savvy self-advocate.

To no small degree, the idea of self-advocacy may be uncomfortable to women because it’s a concept they tend to tie to a male leadership model. And while that may be fine for the guys, it’s not necessarily authentic to women’s behaviors.

As Barbara Annis told Maria Shriver on NBC News, there’s a cost when women choose or are coached to adopt the manner of men. “There’s a huge personal cost, and I think there’s a huge cost for organizations who aren’t getting the best out of people, and the diversity of that.”

Being an entrepreneur can certainly be a challenge. If you have dreams of owning your own business, you should consider the fact that it will require a mountain of effort. There are hundreds and even thousands of tasks that must be performed to insure everything goes smoothly.

One of these tasks you may have not given much thought is hiring employees. Who you hire to help you run your company is extremely important. If you choose the wrong people, you could hasten your young business’s downfall. Alternatively, if you do not perform the hiring process competently, you could run afoul of the law. With that in mind, below five mistakes in the hiring process you should try to avoid.

Skipping the Background Check

A background check is essential to the hiring process these days. If you think you can simply save some money by avoiding this step, you could certainly face problems later on.

Nearly 50 percent of federal prison inmates go on to reoffend. If you hire an ex-con, there’s about a 50 percent chance they will commit another crime. This time, however, your company or your customers could be the victims. You won’t know about a person’s criminal record unless you actually make the effort to find out what it is.

Not Examining a Person’s Social Media

While not all job applicants use social media, many do. Using social media as part of the hiring process is also now becoming increasingly popular. 96 percent of recruiters look at a candidate’s’ social media, and rightly so.

The reason why is easy to understand. You may find clues about behaviors that would not be a good fit for your company and could cause problems later down the road. For example, if a candidate is reposting content that sympathizes with terrorists on Twitter, chances are you don’t want that person working for you.

Hiring People You Know

New small business owners often make the mistake of simply hiring people they know. This could be friends, family members, college roommates or what have you. However, unless your goal is to have a family business, you should probably think more strategically about the hiring process. You want to hire the best applicants for the job. You may be biased towards people you already know. Furthermore, employing friends or family could actually do irreparable harm to those relationships. You need to keep this in mind.

Not Open to Outsourcing the Process 

Hiring new employees is a very complex and time consuming process. Even worse, it’s a legal mind field. If you make mistakes and disregard the law, you may end up being sued. This is one of the reasons why many companies outsource the hiring process to a recruitment process outsourcing firm, or RPO for short.

This will move the legal burden to that third party. Furthermore, it will save you a lot of effort by having experts perform the recruitment process for you. You’ll be able to focus on more important tasks like your end product. It has been reported that two thirds of companies partly or wholly outsource the recruitment process.

Ignoring Intuition

The interview is one of the most important parts of the recruitment process. The reason that is true is because it gives you information you can’t discern just by looking at a resume. How a person acts and converses in person is a big part of whether or not that person is employable or a good fit with your company. In this regard, intuition is important. Someone who makes a good impression may be a better choice than a person who comes off as antisocial but has more accomplishments on their resume.

The hiring process is extremely important. It can be tricky for a new business, but you must take recruitment efforts seriously, and there can be serious negative consequences if you don’t.