You’ve gotten your startup idea off the ground and business is booming—profits are steadily coming in and you’ve decided it’s time to expand. While business growth means great things for your company’s future, it also comes with its fair share of challenges—especially when it comes to hiring new employees to help handle increased need. Whether you’re hiring your first few employees as your small business setup expands, or you’re hiring employees to add to your current roster, these tips will help you expand your team and position your business for success.
How to Decide it’s Time to Hire
To determine whether or not your business is ready and willing to take on a new team member (or multiple!), the following should be true:
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- Your team is maxed out: If you’re burning the midnight oil every night during the week—and probably on weekends, too—it’s time to look into getting more team members. When the needs of your business are far beyond your current capabilities, investing in extra help can promote growth and keep your company on an upward trend.
- Your business has the money to pay new team members: Do you have the business capital required to take on new employees? Hire only when you know that you can manage the costs of increasing your roster of team members. That goes beyond salary needs; you may need to offer employee benefits through a program like Zenefits to attract top talent. If you don’t currently have the financing in place, consider growing your talent by hiring students looking for an internship. These individuals are looking to gain experience, and often willing to accept a lower salary or hourly rate than a professional already in the field might.
- You have the time to invest in a new person’s training: If this is your first employee, know that you’ll be investing quite a bit of time into training. Be sure you’re willing to take on this leadership role while your new hire gets up to speed.
Pinpoint Areas of Need
If the three aforementioned things are true and you’ve committed to taking on a new hire, pinpoint the areas in your business with the greatest need. Which role would have the biggest impact on daily productivity? Perhaps you need a dedicated salesperson to help build profits, or perhaps a marketing specialist who can get your product or service noticed by the masses. Whatever the need, take your time to consider the role that will provide the best return.
Incorporate an Employee Referral Program
If you want to attract great talent without spending hundreds on advertising it, consider using the resources already available. If you already employee a team of skilled workers, draw on them as a source of talented individuals looking for work. They may have friends or former colleagues that could be the perfect fit for the position you’re trying to fill. Your employee referral program could offer an incentive; an employee that recommends a rock star job applicant who ends up getting the position could receive monetary compensation for their efforts.
Create Thorough Onboarding Processes
Once your employee has been hired, make sure you’ve got detailed onboarding processes in place to get them settled and on the right track. Setting them up for success in the role helps everyone involved; having training processes ready and waiting for them on their first day can help them hit the ground running and may help boost employee retention—saving you money and time in the long run.
Complete a Background Check for Every New Hire
One of the most important things to consider as you expand your team is employment screening. Taking on a new hire is inherently risky; this individual will interact with existing employees, clients, and customers. Keep your company and team safe by checking criminal history. If the new hire will be dealing with sensitive financial information, be sure to run a credit check. Transunion’s new brand, ShareAble for Hires is an employment screening service that provides small business owners with detailed background reports in a matter of minutes. As you start your hiring processes, you’ll come to learn how important speed and efficiency are—unfortunately, traditional screening companies can take weeks to get you a response on your employment screening requests. For this reason, an online option like ShareAble for hires could be the right fit for your business.
Expanding a small business takes determination and a whole lot of elbow grease, but the benefits of adding a great hire to your team are vast. Keep these tips in mind and set your company up for success by growing talent and expanding your business’s reach.
