Steps To Hiring Quality Employees

Hiring employees is a skill and an art. As an employer you need to ask some basic questions and here are some to consider: What skills do you bring to the table? Do you feel your training meshes with what we’re looking for? Are you committed to a long term working relationship? What are your salary and benefit expectations? Carefully screen employees and to assure you don’t have to keep hiring as it is a pricey proposition for any company. There is no magic cure for hiring but as a business owner you probably have good instincts and you should let that carry you through the hiring process.

You need to hire employee that have the best skills but you need to be able to afford their payroll. The art of hiring is more than having bodies to punch a time clock. Keeping payroll as little of a variable as possible is a goal of business owners – you need to make payroll regardless of the ebb and flow of receivables. It’s a difficult balancing act.

Company owners need to focus on long term hiring goals. Don’t hire out of panic because you have a sudden influx of work. It’s a more efficient business model to hire employees that will stay long term – unless you have a purely seasonal business model. Ask potential employees their long term goals for employment and what skills they bring to the position. 

Track customer trends and business income and expenses and look at the work flow of your current staff. Turn to them for input on whether they’d like to take on additional roles at the company and whether they may have hidden talents you’d never considered tapping into. You may find you have employees with skills you’d not utilized and their skills could help get you through without needing to hire.

The idea of hiring employees and having an additional person punching the time clock is something that strikes fear into the hearts of many a business owner. It is something that you need to look at seriously and also find a new employee who has the personality to fit in with your company culture. While you can’t learn everything about an employee in the brief span of an interview, you can certainly get a feeling for how they may fit. If you have a very rigid business structure or a very laid back one, see how the potential employee interacts with you and if you feel they will be a good fit with the rest of your staff.