To hire or not to hire: How to know when it’s time to add personnel?

Personnel will always be the lifeblood of any business, but deciding whether or not to recruit more of them will always be a tricky decision. Hiring a new employee for your business costs more than just their salary, with you also needing to factor in the costs of benefits, training, and more.

So how do you know when it’s finally time to invest in additional personnel?

You’re losing time to small tasks

If your staff constantly find themselves bogged down with administrative tasks such as scheduling meetings or organizing files rather than more critical revenue-generating and customer-acquisition activities, it’s a sign you need more hands-on deck. 

Losing time to smaller tasks means your company doesn’t have time to think of long-term growth strategies or of innovative new products/services. It will be an endless cycle of running in place for your business.

Your employees’ morale is at an all-time low

Even the most motivated employees will give in to exhaustion when forced to go so long without support. If you sense your employees are at the end of their rope, it’s time to hire more help.

Before hiring more people, however, be sure to have an honest conversation with employees about why they’ve been really feeling so burned out. Hiring more people won’t fix anything if employees feel there’s something fundamentally wrong with your business. Find out what motivates employees to keep working, what their chief complaints are, where they feel they need more support, etc.

The goal is to identify the source of the morale problem. If employees say they don’t have enough resources or support to do their job, that’s a sign to hire more people immediately.

You are constantly stressed

Although this may seem like an obvious sign, too many business owners blindly accept that constraint stress is just part of being an entrepreneur. Yet if you’re constantly losing sleep, feel a constant tension through your body, and feel stressed just thinking about your business, it’s high time to hire extra hands.

You want to move to a strategic role

It’s important for a business owner to be hands-on but there will come a time when rather than having to worry about the day-to-day of the business, a more strategic role will be more apt for them.

To be able to focus on just certain aspects of the business means the need for additional employees that can handle the other roles that were left behind. Being able to delegate tasks this way is crucial for the work-life balance that’s needed for longevity.

Making the move to hire

You’ll want to hire candidates who have the potential to stay for the long term, are passionate about the job they’re applying for, work well within your team, and can be someone you’ll depend on. On top of the general requirements, you’ll also have to look at a laundry list of qualifications specific to the role they’re applying for.

It’s best to coordinate with the HR department when it comes to recruitment efforts. Recruitment is one of the most important HR functions and they’ll be able to leverage tools like social media and networking to attract the best people to your organization.

Alternatively, one could also hire an HR firm specializing in recruitment. Firms such as Q2 HR Solutions can provide you with the right guidance on when it’s time to hire and what criteria/position to fill.

Q2’s Hiring Basix tool uses a proprietary Background Verification process to provide various background screening and verification services. With Hiring Basix, a candidate’s employment verifications, character reference checks, identity checks and more can go by in a breeze.

Additionally, Q2’s Executive Search service gives your business access to a team of experts with almost 20 years of experience in recruitment and headhunting services, all of who aim to bring the best candidate closer to you. Q2’s Search is even capable of helping an organization fill executive positions, with the firm using its vast network of professionals and industry leaders to find the executives that’ll be the best fit for your organization.

Overall, it’s important that business owners stay in touch with how their employees on the ground are feeling as they’re the best gauge not only for when additional support is needed but also what kind. The good news is that with help from HR personnel and even outside HR solutions firms, hiring additional personnel will always be a breeze.