When should you hire more employees? – Part 2
When it comes to employing new staff, payments are usually the biggest expense to incur in a business. It is even a difficult topic an employer would like to discuss with an employee. But in many cases, employers are forced to hire more employees under different circumstances. But the question in mind is how do you know when you need to employ new staff? First thing first you need to ask yourself a few questions before you act?
Questions like; Are my current employees overworked? Are they being productive? If not, then find a way of how to go about this. People management and building a productive team are the most successful operations in business though I must say it takes time and you ought to be patient about the whole process. But if you are thinking of hiring more employees here are a few tips to help you know when to hire more employees;
When there are complaints within the customer service
If you notice an increase in the number of customer complaints in terms of delivery, refunds, unanswered messages or calls and so on then it can be a sign that you need to hire more employees. Most times insufficient workforce results in prospective loss of customers whose inquiries may go unacknowledged. You may notice that you are struggling to meet the ends of your customers and you are failing at this. This only means that you will need to consider hiring more employees to create this efficiency. No business can afford to lose already existing customers or neglect the new ones. Here it becomes clear to you that you will need to employ new staff to meet the ends of both your old and new customers.
When your staff is being overworked
To know whether you need to hire new staff, you should consider the current workload of your staff. As an employer, you should be able to know when your employees are struggling to keep up the demands of their job. Sometimes they may show this through increased levels of stress, they stop paying attention to detail or request to take leave due to an illness or to take time off their work overload. As a company owner don’t try to ignore these red flags because they can affect the efficiency and productivity of your company hence which may not be good for the company. Ensure that your employees are not overly worked by employing new staff to reduce the workload and improve efficiency.
When planning to expand your business
When we talk about expanding your business that only means more and more clients which in short means more workload. You cannot fully rely on only your existing workforce because it will lead to work overload. To avoid this, you will have to employ new staff and mix them with the old staff to ensure consistency in quality that is expected of you from the client. Combining your old staff with the new ones creates room for both parties to get to know each other and learn from each other as much as they can. It is also an opportunity to improve your business operations and a chance for your company to grow.
When there is a lot of overtime
As much as your employees are doing the best they can to complete their work in a given period, there’s still a need for them to work overtime. In most cases, employers are happy to see their employees working overtime because it benefits them. When we put it this way, as an employer would you prefer your employees working overtime and not producing the results you want or work for the given time and producing results. Working overtime is both a blessing and a curse to an employee and an employer respectively. Hence employers should consider employing more staff to reduce the workload for the current staff and also to create opportunities for others. It improves efficiency and productivity in a company because employees can rest and come back with a refreshed mind to start the new day’s work.
When there is a negative impact on revenue
The revenue that every employee can generate for your business can set benchmarks for it. How? First of all, you need to identify the key sectors that contribute to the success of the business and establish how you can be able to support them to remain consistent. Hire additional workers were necessary to create a competitive environment hence this will in return improve efficiency and productivity and later on boost the company’s revenue.
When there is a competitive landscape
Every company is on the lookout to being the best in the market and therefore they never turn down the opportunity to hire more skilled workers. When a company begins to grow, there’s always that competitive side of it that tends to kick in because they want to be the best at what they deliver. Hiring more skilled and talented staff is one way to beat a competitor at their own game and it also improves the efficiency of the company.
When there’s an increase in complaints from overworked workers
At some point in an employee’s work journey, they all begin making complaints about their workplaces and this is a result of being overworked. If at any one point you start to hear many complaints from the current workers about the work overload then it is a sign for you to start thinking about hiring more staff to reduce the workload of the current workers.
In conclusion, many at times we are skeptical about hiring new employees into our company but to some extent, it becomes inevitable to do so. We worry about the expenses in terms of payments but if you look at it benefiting you in the long run, then the expense is worth spending on.
