5 Ways to Build the Best Team for Your Growing Business

As a business owner, you often have to take on many tasks, some of which you may not be fully comfortable doing. This often happens when an employee leaves the business. You may have to take on that employee’s duties, or at least those that are critical to the business’s functions until someone new is hired.
 
On the other hand, you also often add the task of seeking job candidates, interviewing them, and determining who to hire, to your plate. That places a lot of extra work on you. It also brings up the question of how you manage this work. Do you try to work more hours to get things finished, or do you put projects on the backburner until a new employee is hired?
 
As the owner, you’re often working long hours and getting little sleep, yet bringing in someone to help with the workload requires taking on even more work as you go through the hiring process. Fortunately, there are some ways you can expand your team and grow at the same time.

How Are You Doing Things Now?

Before you start growing and expanding, look at your people and your processes. This will give you an idea of how everyone in your business is working on their own and together to help the business make a profit. The earlier you do this, the better you’ll understand how your business is working. Some processes may have evolved into something different than what you initially planned or the business has evolved such that the process you put in place just doesn’t make sense any longer.
 
Once you have completed this analysis, you can understand how adding additional employees will benefit your workflow and your processes. Obviously, unfilled positions are creating a hole in these processes that need to be filled. But are there any positions that are overworked or underutilized? If so, that needs to be considered.
You may also use this process to examine how you hire employees. Do you have a formal process? If not, it may be time to create one.

What Are Your Needs?

Where does your business need new employees? What position would be the most helpful to add? Obviously, departments or individuals who are feeling overwhelmed with work is one place to start. Recruiting for additional positions here will help your business run more smoothly.
 
This isn’t the only place to look at needs. Also, take the time to look across the organization as a whole. Is there anything missing? Are there positions that you haven’t created because you haven’t had the resources to do so before? Do you have excess capacity in some areas? If so, growing your business needs to consider these factors as well as you move to the next phase of the company’s lifespan.

Are You Ready to Recruit?

If you don’t have a formal hiring process or a system for evaluating candidates, are you ready to expand? This process needs to involve marketing the position, a rubric for resume evaluation, and a method for interviewing candidates. During this process, you want to make certain candidates understand your mission statement, values, and goals. They also need to have a clear idea of what you expect from your employees. All of this should be apparent after reading the position’s job description.
 
Do you have employees that are skilled at interviewing? Do you have access to behavioral assessments that can help understand the candidates and how they match with the job and the person managing this position. Building a team takes painstaking effort to make sure you get the right fit. These are often capabilities many businesses do not posess.
 
Creating this recruitment process, while time-consuming, isn’t as difficult as it once was thanks to technology. There are a number of different tools out there you can make use of to schedule appointments, track responses, and market available positions. You can even make use of video conferencing to interview potential new employees from anywhere in the world.
 
Even with all of these advances, if you are extremely strapped for resources, have such major hiring demands or are seeking a unique position you may find it most effective to hire an external resource to help conduct the search for certain positions. Additionally, with historically low unemployment and the current “war for talent”, finding the right talent now often requires that you go out and find the right person vs. having them come to you via a job board posting. The best candidates do not often just reply to advertisements.

What Is Your Onboarding Process?

Do you have a clearly defined onboarding process? This process is critical for new employees. It should cover everything from their job duties to how they request time off. It should also provide a roadmap showing someone succeeds in your company. If a new hire doesn’t know how they can stand out or show that they want to move forward, it can be difficult for them to succeed in your business. This onboarding process should be completed within the employee’s first three months.

Seek Outside Help

You don’t have to grow your business on your own. Companies such as Lauber Business Partners can work with you to make certain your team has the talent, skills, and knowledge necessary for your business to grow. If you are trying to build your own internal processes or if you just want to engage professional recruitment resources, Lauber is your answer. Lauber has a full team of HR experts ready to help as well as having one of Wisconsin’s most respected executive recruiting practice.
 
Lauber Business Partners are here to assist you with all aspects of recruiting. By expanding your team with strong new hires, you’ll be able to grow more easily and quickly.