What To Consider When Expanding Your Staff Base

As your business grows, so will your team of staff as operations become inundated with tasks and the requirement for extra sets of hands becomes a must. If you’re looking to expand your team further, you may be wondering which departments need it the most, and how to effectively expand your employee base. Not sure where to start? Take a look at what you need to consider when expanding your staff base.

 Why hire new staff?

You may be wondering why you should consider hiring new members of staff. Hiring new members of staff can have many advantages such as:

• Improving employee mental health
• Grow your revenue
• Bringing new ideas to your business
• Expand the skill set of your team
• If you want to boost the mental health of your team, hiring a workplace chaplain could be wise. Look at the benefits of workplace chaplains here.

Which department needs it the most?

Even small businesses have multiple departments to help run things effectively – but which department could do with an extra pair of hands or two, and why should you prioritize that department? 

Sales

Your sales department is obviously an extremely important factor of your business. Think about a few important factors before adding to this department such as:

• Have you had to turn away any work?
• Are your sales team struggling to keep on top of things?
• Are targets being met? If so, does this warrant a new member of staff?
• Have you had multiple unhappy customers lately? Could this be due to an understaffing problem?

Marketing

Your marketing team may begin as one or two people, but as your business grows there may be a large demand for more people on board. Ask yourself whether your marketing team is meeting deadlines, and are they effectively bringing in new customers as well as maintaining old ones? Could they benefit from a new member of staff to take some of the workload?

Accounting

Your accounting team also might be relatively small and again, when business is thriving they may be overwhelmed by their workload. Would your accounting team thrive with some extra help? After all, they are the sole handlers of the money your business is making!

Technical

Products and programs fail sometimes, and your technical team are the core of resolving this issue. Have you had a backlog of repairs or requests? While you should be looking at your products in case there’s a fault, perhaps they need some extra help too.

Phone lines

Anyone who has ever worked on a phone line will tell you that sometimes, if the phones are ringing off the hook that it can be difficult to perform to the best of your abilities, especially if you have to follow up with tasks or actions after a phone call. If your phones are ringing constantly, you might consider adding someone to the team.

Front of house staff

Front of house staff members are anyone that deals with the public face to face. Whether that be in a restaurant, a cake shop, or even a supermarket. Speak to your staff about their workload and make an informed decision on whether you need to expand your front of house team.

Behind the line

Your team behind the line overlooks many things. Whether it’s a chef in a hot kitchen or a team on a factory line, it’s important to know if they’re keeping on top of demands. Take some time to look at productivity levels and the quality of the goods too. This way you can decide whether or not to expand this department.

Consider outsourcing!

Are there more effective ways of running operations?

Ask yourself whether you really need another member of staff. Over time it’s easy for employees to become relaxed in the working environment, and operations may not run as smoothly as they could do. Take a look at the way each department runs to see if you could tighten things up and avoid having to expand your staff base all together. Unfortunately, you may need to implement random or yearly drug testing. Simply search on line for drug testing near me or narrow the search for example as drug test philadelphia.

Can you afford it?

The idea of a new member of staff is exciting, but can your business afford it? With everything that’s happened in 2020, many businesses have had to let staff members go due to budget cuts. Be sure you can afford an extra wage to pay.

Look for multiple skills

When looking at potential employees, it’s easy to look at the main skill you’re after. For example, if you’re looking to expand your sales team, you will be looking for experience in sales, but could they help out elsewhere too such as jumping on the phone lines when it’s busy or helping out your technical team? You should also look for individuals that have a multitude of experience so that if the need arises, they can switch through departments and help out in more than just one place. 

Will a new employee be stepping on someone’s toes?

While you may feel like a particular department needs a helping hand, it’s important to speak to your team before making an informed decision. A new member of staff can sometimes disrupt a close knit team, and your current employees may feel that the projects they’ve worked hard on are suddenly being taken away. Speak to your staff and delegate tasks for the new opening before advertising any positions.

There are many things to think about when considering expanding your team and with these tips and some careful consideration, you will be able to effectively expand your work force and continue to grow your business further.