Knowing when to expand your team is a tricky decision to make. It’s treading a fine line between propelling your business into new growth, or potentially plummeting it into trouble if it’s not the right time. It’s not a decision that should be taken lightly and requires careful consideration.
Let’s explore some obvious signs that it’s time to hire new employees:
Are you at a stage in your business where you’re comfortably surpassing your revenue targets? If so, this is a strong sign that you have a strong business infrastructure in place and it’s time to take the next step. Hire more talent so you can reach new highs!
Sometimes not hitting your revenue targets can indicate your need to hire new talent. If you’re missing out on business because you’ve not got all the right hands on deck, making some new hires could be just the thing that drives your business forward. It may mean hiring additional players in your sales or back office team or creating entirely new roles to fill in the blanks. Either way, spend time with your management team to identify the holes that are holding your business back.
Are you receiving more than 25% of your business from non-local markets? If so, this could be pointing to a hidden gem for your business and may mean you need to expand your team to accommodate the new market. If you’ve got customers knocking on your door, make sure there’s someone there to answer!
Is your back office overrun? Are you constantly running into mishaps and backlogs? You want your back office to run like a well-oiled machine. After all, the back office is the backbone of the business and what happens in the back office always trickles through to the customer experience. So pay attention to how smoothly this area of the business is running and assess if you need more boots on the ground to continue delivering on your customers’ needs.
Are some of your key players underperforming? You might need to divide one role into several in order to create more efficiency. Sometimes one person just won’t cut it and that’s no fault of their own. Pay attention when your employees report heavy workloads, and use KPIs to spot any underperformance that may indicate role inefficiencies.
As a business owner, this isn’t such a terrible problem to have! But it is one that needs immediate attention. If your business is overrun with enquiries and your team is struggling to keep up, you’re losing out on business (not to mention it doesn’t look great when sales calls aren’t followed up). Recognise this as a call to expand your team and watch your business grow from strength to strength.
Sometimes new talent is needed to drive innovation and create new products. If you haven’t brought anybody new into the business for a while, it’s easy for the ideas to run dry and for the team to fall into groupthink. Sometimes a fresh perspective can really switch up the pace. Equally, if you’re planning on innovating in new directions, you’re going to need some fresh talent!
Hiring fresh talent can be just the remedy to propel your business to new heights. But you want to make it worthwhile and avoid all the most common hiring mistakes, of course. Thankfully, we at Fixed-Fee Placements offer an affordable way for companies like yours to bring new talent into the business. For help growing your team, call us on 01865 655 298. Or if you prefer to go it alone, check out our top book recommendations for recruiting.
Vanessa Ramkissoon | Recruitment Content Expert
