Building an all-star team of employees at a small business

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What do you look for when you’re building an all-star team of employees?

Do you seek out those who fit into your company culture, focus on skill sets, or look for enthusiasm? (Or maybe all of the above!) We’re a small business and entrepreneurs looking for tips when hiring team players.

Executives discussing documents at meeting

What makes this a difficult situation is that you are a small business.  You don’t have the time to invest in training someone green.  At the same time, you may not have the money to match the salary requirements of the more experienced candidates.

I’ve met with several entrepreneurs that focused on enthusiasm and personalities, with the hope that the new hire would grow into the position.  The problem is that as busy entrepreneurs and small business owners – you don’t have the time to train the new hire.  What eventually happens is that the new hire never meets expectations, because they are never given the training that they were expecting.

  • The small business owners still does many of the jobs that the new person was hired to do AND pay the new hire her salary.
  • The new hire is frustrated because she can’t get the proper training AND gets reprimanded because she isn’t doing the job correctly.

Breaking the Cycle

There are a few ways to break this cycle.

  • Contract those duties or tasks to freelance talent
  • Hire a training consultant for the new employee
  • Hire an experienced, older employee on a sliding scale

 

Contract or freelance talent

The advantage of hiring contract or freelance talent is that you only hire when you need that particular talent or task completed.  It depends on the task that is required, of course.

For simple administration and executive assistant duties, you can call upon Virtual Assistants services.  This is great if your needs are a few hours or days a week.

There are also several freelance services for graphics, audio, video, copy-writing, social media and marketing.

The assumption with these contract services is that there is little training required, and if you are not satisfied with their work, you can change resources at the end of the short-term contract.

 

Training consultant

If you need full-time, in-house staff consider hiring a training consultant to create your orientation materials, your employee handbooks, document your desired procedures and then train your new hires.

This allows you to hire younger, less experienced staff (at lower rates), give them the training and orientation attention they deserve, without adding to your already overflowing plate.

 

Hiring experience, older employees

 

The last possibility is to look at experienced but older candidates.  Often times, older candidates have less expenses.  Their children are grown; they own their own home with no mortgage; and they have little debt.  They may even understand the difficult situation of the small business owner.

Therefore; they may be open to sliding salary scale (a lower starting salary with regular review for increases based on the success of the company).

I know your situation is different.  If you would like additional information on this topic, please contact LauraRose@RoseCoaching.info

I am a business coach and this is what I do professionally.  It’s easy to sign up for a complementary one-on-one coaching call, just use this link https://www.timetrade.com/book/WFSFQ

 

With enough notice, it would be my honor to guest-speak at no cost to your group organization.