HR Snapshot #30: Start-Up Business - Who to hire first?
Posted on 26th January 2021 at 16:10
We are often in discussions with aspiring leaders and entrepreneurs about exciting plans to hire and build their team – and trying to work out, who should they recruit first?
The first thing to do is to identify the activities that are going to bring you the most revenue. After all, that is the reason you are in business!
For example, if you know that the most profitable thing is coding, marketing, or giving great advice, that is something that you should keep ownership of until you get to a point where you have too much work to manage.
Consider which tasks you could bring someone in to do, to take a load off your plate to allow you to focus on your income-generating tasks. At the beginning of any new business. you need to focus on the high-income generating tasks ideally.
• Look at what is most profitable - what is bringing in most revenue?
• What are you strongest at?
• What are you weakest at?
The more money you bring in, the more you can invest in bringing more staff into your business and build the right systems and processes. Remember, that hiring freelancers and outsourcing companies works well for business support – including bookkeeping, administration, and HR – so ask yourself if you really have a full-time job in these areas at this stage or if someone external could work for you or if you really do need to hire. Consider also the hidden talent market - people who need flexible or part-time work, but often have strong skills to bring to the table which could really boost your capability. even for lower level roles. On the other hand, maybe your business needs to think ahead and look at rising stars - an apprentice programme is often a good call for nice or specialist skills that are expensive to hire from your 2-3rd employee onwards.
On a side note, if you are not able to afford to pay yourself before bringing another person into your business then you need to review your business model and pricing. A common mistake is growing too fast and loosing sight of profitability.
Hiring too fast can also be a mistake – make sure you have reflected and taken time to identify what you need, if you really need that person and follow a through process making sure you have a choice of 2-3 of the best available candidates in the market for your business. After all, you are going to spend a big chunk of time, money and resources and ultimately must work with and manage the new person – so it pays to “hire slow”!
For more information on getting hiring right and some initial thoughts on the best strategy for you to take feel free to book an initial free call with our consultants - email hello@humberhrpeople.co.uk to book a time.
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