With business growth comes expansion. Sooner or later, you will need to delegate some of the tasks to another person. In other words, you will have to entrust the stability and future of your business to someone else.
There’s a common saying in the business world that employees are the backbone of every company. They bring in skills and knowledge that propel your business forward day after day. Without them, your business stalls and eventually fails.
It’s just like how a vehicle operates. A combination of different car parts and actions from the driver moves the vehicle forward. Should one part fail, the vehicle will function improperly or fail altogether.
For this and many other reasons, consider the factors below when making a new hire.
Factors to Consider When Hiring Employees
Whether this is your first time or you are making your 10th or so hire, evaluating these four factors when hiring guarantees you the best employees.
Is the Job Description Clear?
A job description outlines an employee’s duties and responsibilities that the particular position expects. It is the writeup that you send when advertising for a vacant position in your firm.
This description will also be used to draft a legal contract, set employee goals, review performance, and so on. A clear and comprehensive job description guarantees that you are getting applicants who fit your exact criteria. Most importantly, the new hire will join the team with a clear foresight of what’s expected of them.
What Are Your Needs?
When you or your human resource manager identifies a talent gap, you note the problems that are not receiving the right attention. These will form the basis of your needs when looking for a new hire.
What is the scope of the problems? Do they need entry-level or senior-level talent? Consider all these needs to make sure that your new hire meets them.
Education and Certifications
The right education ensures that the candidate has both practical and theoretical knowledge of what’s expected of them. They have undergone the necessary training and preparations to tackle the job that’s ahead.
Some professions also require employees to be certified or licensed by the right bodies. Hiring unlicensed persons is actually illegal in some states. But more importantly, certifications mean that your new hire has been tested and approved by a third party.
Work Experience
Hiring a candidate who has performed the exact tasks that you are assigning them is imperative.
Work experience means that the applicant has worked and probably excelled in similar tasks, under different work environments. This speaks volumes about their adaptability.
However, do not allow this factor to prevent you from hiring employees with great potential. Remember, internships can be considered as work experience too!
Soft and Hard Skills
Soft skills are those personality traits that are desirable for a particular position. For instance, a receptionist’s most valuable soft skill is customer service and interpersonal communication. On the other hand, an assembly line worker will need the skill of teamwork more than any other.
Hard skills involve the technical knowledge of a particular subject that an employee will use in carrying out their duties. An architect’s hard skills might include working knowledge of AutoCAD software while a programmer’s include mastering several programming languages.
Insuring Your New Hires
The law requires all businesses with one or more employees to purchase workers compensation insurance for each. This ensures that your employees are financially covered should an injury occur while carrying out work-related duties, especially if they cannot work for a while or even forever.
Without this insurance, your employees have the right to consult the services of an injury attorney such as Kooi Law to file a lawsuit against you or the business. This might cost you millions of dollars more than you would’ve spent on purchasing workers comp insurance.
