Any good small business is built from quality employees. Financial tips come in all forms, and one of the most important monetary decisions a manager could make is who to hire. Picking the perfect new staff members could be complicated, but the process may be helped along with planning and preparation, well before the first candidate sits down to be interviewed.
Take steps to get ready
Bringing in new employees isn't something that can happen overnight. The company needs to be ready for the addition, both financially and structurally. For example, the business model and financial plan should be able to handle more workers – and their salaries, cost of training, supplies and workspace should all be accounted for.
To get the process underway, small business owners should define the position, according to Bankrate. New hires shouldn't be running errands or doing menial tasks if that isn't what the job entails. Instead, their role should be clearly laid out in advance, with set guidelines. Once a job description is in place, the potential candidates can then be brought in and interviewed.
In addition, it might be smart for a small business owner to determine whether or not the company's needs can be met in other ways, the news source noted. Perhaps altering current staff roles to better fit a new position is more ideal, and could save money in the long run. Also, a temp agency might offer a solution, costing less than a full-time employee while allowing a firm to see if extra help is truly needed.
A business could benefit from always searching for new employees, as well. The hiring process doesn't need to be a finite task. Instead, smaller firms should always be scouting for potential talent and looking to improve at certain positions.
"The moment you're done hiring, you should be keeping your antennae up for the future," Joe Kennedy, author of The Small Business Owners Manual, told the news source. "That's something that flexible smaller companies can do that bigger firms, often weighted down with policies and procedures, cannot."
Spruce up the interview process
After a company establishes what it wants to get out of new hires, the next step typically includes the interview process. The business and financial plan could receive a boost with quality staff members, but some managers aren't the best at interviewing. There are several common mistakes many people make when taking this step.
If this process isn't running smoothly, good candidates might be missed and the wrong people could be brought in. Many interviewers start off by asking clever, confusing questions, according to Inc. magazine. While some firms are fond of this tactic as a means to pick out exceptional hires, in most cases it backfires. The best questions to ask should relate directly to the position, not to brain-teasers or riddles.
Every small company wants to have the best staff, and employees who deal with business banking or other financial services are critical to the overall success of the firm. However, an interview shouldn't involve asking candidates to suck up, or even rate the interviewer after the fact, the news source noted. Asking questions such as this very rarely bring out honest answers from people, which means the step is more of a waste of time than anything else.
While small business owners might want to find out if their potential hires can relax, act quickly or make smart decisions under pressure, there are better ways to go about it. At the core of the process should be the idea that any question, topic or trick should relate back to the position. Above all else, each person should be analyzed to see how well they could perform the job.