Plan carefully before deciding to hire a new team member. You could save yourself a lot of time and frustration.
Hiring an employee eats up a significant amount of time, effort and money, says Cissy Pau, principal consultant with Clear HR Consulting Inc. in Vancouver. Hiring before you are ready or enlisting the wrong person can prove seriously detrimental to your business.
Here are five questions to ask yourself to ensure your practice can handle a new team member:
1. Do I have the cash flow?
Employees are expensive, says Pau, so make sure you can afford a new one.
Before deciding to hire someone, she says, check your books to ensure your business has enough revenue to pay a salary. If you don’t, you may want to consider hiring someone on a contract or part-time basis instead of as a full-time staff member.
2. Is there a sustainable workload?
Just because you feel overwhelmed now, Pau says, doesn’t mean there’s enough work to justify hiring someone.
Create a job description, she says, to ensure there are daily or weekly tasks for a team member to focus on.
As well, assess how long the work will last. Are there ongoing responsibilities that will require a full-time or part-time staff member? Or is the work in question a three-month project that would best suit a contract worker?
3. What is the return on investment?
Before hiring, think about what a new employee will add to your business.
Ask yourself whether the employee will pay for himself or herself, says Pau. “Will [the new hire] save you time? Make you money? Allow you to spend time generating more money.”
Typically, for a new hire to be financially viable, she says, he or she should generate two to three times his or her salary for the business.
4. Do I have the time?
Check your schedule to make sure you will be able to coach a new employee.
Training a new staff member in the role’s responsibilities and the business’s policies increases the chances of his or her success, says Pau. However, it can also take a lot of time — often longer than planned — to properly coach a new hire.
5. Do I have systems in place?
Take a look at your business’s processes and fixtures to ensure it can handle a new employee.
Certain plans have to be in place for a new team member to join the company. For example, Pau says, you should have a payroll process, a performance review system and office equipment, like a desk, computer and phone line, ready for the new hire’s arrival.
This is the first instalment in a three-part series on hiring staff. Next: What to look for in a candidate.
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