Simple Business Steps - Pre-Hire Preparation

Welcome to my “Simple Business Steps”? postings. The following are my thoughts based on my expertise and previous experiences gained from my past 20+ years working within and leading organizations both big and small.

Running your business is a lot of work - fun at times and not so fun other times. Beyond the service or product that drives the revenues, there are a lot of aspects to running your business.

A few key aspects that need to be done right in operating your business include:

• Staffing – Hiring, training, managing, and yes, terminating
• Administration – Process design, structure, documenting, tracking, storing
• Finance – Cash-flow – A/R & A/P, capital sourcing
• Sales – Team skills, market channel, account management
• Marketing – Mediums, message, timing

… Plus more and then all the details each part entails.

The following is: Part One - Pre-Hire Preparation...

This is only a brief review of some of the items you'll want to consider in advance of making the investment in new staff.

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Pre-Hire Preparation

Who do you hire?

That’s a key question that you need to ultimately determine. Who is it that you’re going to hire? There are some preliminary steps you need to complete before that decision will present itself.

Role Description

What is the role you’re hiring for? Have you set out the role – that means setting out the functions that you’re expecting that new hire to perform? Are they clear – not just for you but for the prospective new hire?

You need to be able to the role articulate to yourself, understanding the description and then be able to move onto explaining it to the prospective new hire.

Skill Requirements

From the tasks noted in your job description, what are the skills that you believe will be necessary to complete those tasks?

Do they include …

• Education, a specific degree or training or course completion?
• Number of years of experience from a specified industry?
• What type of attitude do they bring?
• What about specific technical skills – MS Office or SAP or DOS based programming or welding in enclosed spaces?
• Client interaction experience – do they need to have dealt with clients face to face or by phone?

 … and the list goes on to capture your needs.

For both of your ‘Role Description’ & ‘Skill Requirements’, you’d be well served reviewing it with any other team members or others who may have done parts of the role previously (or currently if it’s appropriate to ask).

[Side note: As you go forward in running your department, organization etc – a good practice is to have current employees set out all the tasks they complete along with a process document detailing the job so you have a place to start from should the role suddenly become unavailable.]

Compensation

This is the part that you need to have defined for yourself but you may or may not choose to share this information in the posting of the role. Rather, you may save it for when you’ve found the right person to put an offer of employment with the compensation detailed.

The key aspects of compensation –

• Salary (Annual)/ Hourly Wage
• Bonus; define the opportunity (e.g. up to X% of salary)
• Commission; rates or an estimated total compensation (be ready to explain & justify the potential earnings)
• Health Benefits; dental, vision, health care expense account
• Vacation entitlement; number of weeks, floating days off or other defined non-work days beyond statutory holidays
• Other perks that your firm may offer that give it uniqueness

The following step involves determining the method you use in your search for that best candidate - but that’s another topic, for another post.

For now, there’s a lot of pre-work before you go looking for new employees.

These many pieces need to be overseen as you lead your business. You may have all the skills but not the time, or you may have some of the time but not all knowledge to make you comfortable in completing all the functions.

What help is there?

Help is available - you can contact me, Aaron Taylor. I work with small to medium sized businesses providing the pieces to help at all stages of your operation such as the setup and getting your firm going with the necessary operating aspects or later on as your business is looking at the next stages.

I’m available for interim periods of time to help you develop the needed expertise internally. I can setup, structure, and give guidance to get you through to the next stage – help you grow or just step in briefly to cover a gap.

I bring a myriad of industry experience and expertise from all levels of management. Drop me a note to discuss – I’m always open to meet and chat about how best to address the opportunities running a business presents.

So, if you’re looking for help understanding or doing, I’m available, just direct message me and we can chat about your current plans and goals.

All the best in running your business - it's tough but you've got help out there.

? Aaron. W. Taylor 2018