By Henry Brown
Hiring employees is a big step. Some business owners can rush into it, only to realize that they weren’t truly prepared to take the leap. Below are some signs that you may not be ready to hire employees just yet
You can’t realistically afford to hire
Employees can be expensive. On top of paying them a decent salary, you need to be able to afford to pay for employee benefits, employee equipment, payroll software and workers compensation insurance.
Add up all of these costs and determine whether you can truly afford to hire. Factor in any increase in revenue that hiring an employee may allow you to make. If it’s unlikely you’ll be able to cover all the costs or you’re likely to make no profit, hiring is something you should probably put off until you work out how to make more money (or make cutbacks elsewhere).
You’re thinking of hiring roles that could be outsourced
There’s usually no point in hiring employees to take on temporary or infrequent tasks that could be done off-site. This includes tasks like marketing, accounting and IT support. Large businesses may have enough work to dedicate an entire staff member or department to these tasks, but most smaller businesses are unlikely to be able to find enough worthwhile full-time work, making outsourcing a better option in these cases.
There are so many flexible ways of outsourcing staff nowadays such as smart resourcing. Look into these options before you consider hiring staff.
You haven’t looked into the legal requirements
Any business that takes on employees has to meet certain requirements such as health and safety requirements. As an employer you meanwhile need to be licensed and insured. If you haven’t looked into any of these legal requirements, it could be important that you do before you choose to hire.
A HR advisor or employment lawyer will usually be able to tell you everything you need to know and may be able to help you take the steps to getting ready. This could prevent you from accidentally breaking the law when making your fist hire.
You haven’t developed company protocol
To train your employee how to do things, there needs to be some kind of protocol in place. If you currently do a lot of things on the fly, it could be time to start adopting a structure before you hire employees.
This could include adopting health and safety protocol, security protocol and developing various routines when dealing with admin just as answering the phone in a certain way or replying to emails in a certain way.
You’ve only looked at a handful of applicants
If you’ve already started looking for employees, it’s important that you look at enough resumes and conduct enough interviews before deciding who to hire. You want your first employee to be the right fit for the role – the more candidates you look at, the more likely you are to find the right employee.
Start advertising a few weeks to a few months beforehand. This gives you enough to receive and read a wide array of applications. Aim to interview at least 10 of these applicants. You could always consider hiring a recruitment company to help you. _______
Henry Brown is an online marketing executive. When he isn’t talking shop, he’s roaming the streets of London, uncovering the extra-ordinary in the ordinary.
