Grow Your Business

One of the keys to any successful business is finding the right people for your company. With the right people, a small company can operate as efficiently and effectively any company of any size.

This also means that your company could save a lot of resources considering that hiring, training and motivating staff takes time and costs money that could be put to many other uses.

It is imperative and cost-efficient for companies get the best people right from the first moment of hiring. Here are nine keys to a well-planned organization:

 

1. Know your need

The first step towards hiring the right employees is to know exactly what you need. Know the positions you need to fill, and what skill sets are needed by these jobs.

Even before you talk to applicants, this knowledge will allow you to screen them, and choose only from qualified applicants. In addition, you would prevent problems in the future if you knew your business’s specific job requirements right from the very beginning.

2. Experienced or newbie?

Decide whether you want to hire fresh graduates or experienced employees. There are advantages and disadvantages to hiring either type of employee; ultimately, the decision to hire would depend on what you need and what stage your business is in.

If you want people who can hit the ground running, people with some work experience would generally be preferable over new graduates. In principle, hiring people with experience also eliminates the need for lengthy training and supervision. Experienced workers might also be able to advise you on work-related  problems and recommend practical solutions.

However, they might find it difficult to adapt to your work culture and ethic; as the saying goes, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. People with a lot of work experience may also command high salaries, thus increasing your costs.

On the other hand, hiring fresh graduates can give you certain advantages, foremost of which is that they could be more easily trained according to your company culture and standards.

They also tend to be easier to motivate and stay with a company for a long time. In addition, salaries typically given to fresh graduates are more affordable.

Fresh graduates require significant training and supervision. You must also be ready to put up with errors particularly when they are just starting. But once your training kicks in—assuming you do invest in training—the benefits of having workers according to your standards would also kick in.

 

3. How to find them

To find employees, you can rely on a mixture of job advertisements, referrals, even
recruitment agencies.  Should you choose to post ads, make sure to post them in popular and credible websites and publications. Be very specific about your job requirements.

To find maintenance staff or sales personnel, dealing with a manpower agency may be easier than finding them on your own, as long as you spell out your exact requirements to the agency.

During the interview proper, validate and vet the answers given by the applicant in the application form. Try to get to know the employee better by asking what he does after work, his hobbies and interests. These questions will help you gauge a person’s character and dependability, giving you a complete picture of the applicant you won’t be able to get by just reading his résumé.

5. Organizing the business

 

Now that you’re done with staffing your business, the next step is for you to organize your business.  While most startups are usually very informal when it comes to division of labor, it is necessary to organize departments within you business as soon as possible.

Clearly delineating your workers’ areas of responsibility helps increase efficiency and transparency. Make sure that each one knows what he is supposed to do. This helps lay the groundwork for future expansion.

The basic departments in a company are production, sales, accounting and administration.

6. Command structure

After organizing the departments, next up is determining the command structure. Each member of the staff must know to whom they should report. Enforce this command structure in order to prevent conflicts and avoid office politics that could hamper work.

You must also institute a training program and a means to communicate with your employees to keep them abreast of information they need for their work.

This is also an assurance against all work knowledge being vested in just one person, and helps in training employees in the different aspects of a job or project.

Develop a mechanism for checking progress in the form of performance targets and periodic evaluations. Targets will provide concrete and tangible measures for performance.

These targets coupled with periodic evaluations will allow you to identify problems, keep your staff motivated, and identify promising employees.

8. Company finances

Aside from personnel, you must also pay attention to organizing the business’s finances. Proper organization of finance is critical for the business’s success. Study and make a realistic estimate of your operational costs and set up a budget accordingly.

Project your profit and cash flow. Develop a reliable collection system and expense control program using a dependable accounting system.

9. Office supplies

You also need to organize your office equipment and supplies. Organizing and proper maintenance of supplies can help increase efficiency and boost productivity, at the same time saving resources for the company.

Have a centralized procurement and inventory system for all supplies and equipment.

Everything must be labeled and employees using the equipment must be made to fill up forms or make written requests; this will reduce incidents of pilferage and allows you to keep better inventory.