Everyone has great ideas. Lots of people even have a great product. But the difference between winning and losing in business can be as simple as whether or not you have the right team behind you. You can be the best standalone entrepreneur ever, but without the right systems and people to scale, you can be left high and dry when big opportunities come your way.
So now that you have already taken steps to form your corporation or form your LLC, how do you find, hire, and retain the right people to make sure you’re ready when the opportunity comes your way? Let’s dive in…
Identifying Talent
The first and most difficult step of building the right team is finding the right people in the first place. Where do you even look for these people?
LinkedIn, Indeed, ZipRecruiter…the list goes on and on of places that offer fast hiring opportunities. But more often than not, a lot of these sites place application volume over application quality, and you might find yourself sorting through hundreds of applications to try to find people that are even remotely a fit for your organization. So what steps can you take in the real world to find better people?
Stay Connected to Your Community
It’s much easier to make local hires when you have a local network of people you can trust. They likely know people that are looking for work that fit your job description!
Invest In Relationships with Others in Your Industry
Your competitors and referral partners can be a great source of potential hires too. Just because you may do similar work doesn’t mean that you can’t benefit from each other from time to time. Employees that may not be a great fit for their organization may be just the kind of employee you’re looking for.
Don’t Always Have an Agenda
Have an open mind. Not everything in business needs to be transactional. Some of your best hires may come from seeing someone that would be a great fit for your organization and making space for them rather than hiring someone because you needed someone in the role immediately.
Onboarding Talent
Onboarding plays a crucial role in making sure you keep great employees in the long term. But rather than talk about what onboarding should look like, let’s talk about crucial mistakes most businesses make in the onboarding process so you can avoid them in your business.
Not Having a Process
A lot of businesses say they have an onboarding process, but for most companies the name of that process is “Figure It Out On Your Own.” You should have most of what your new employee needs immediately accessible to them, things like your employee handbook, company history, Mission/Vision/Values/Purpose statements, etc. But most importantly, you should be meeting with them at least once a day their first week to make sure they have the resources they need and understand their role in the organization.
Expecting Your New Hire to Fit In
The last thing you want to do with a great hire is try to fit them into a mold. Some of your best employees can be a little quirky, a little different. But those quirks might be just what makes them an out of the box thinker or an ideal fit. The worst thing you can do as a company owner or hiring manager is to want everyone on your team to think and act the same.
Not Asking for Feedback
If you hire someone great, you should want to know what they’re thinking and what improvements they think could be made to your existing process. “This is the way we’ve always done things” should never be a phrase heard in your organization.
Creating a Positive Work Environment
Once you have onboarded your amazing new employee(s), it’s up to you to make sure that they continue to have a great experience, feel secure in their position, and can focus on doing great work within your organization. So how can you make sure this happens regardless of what kind of market or industry your business is in?
Create Opportunities for Open Communication and Collaboration
At least once a week your team should have unstructured time to discuss opportunities, setbacks, and solve problems. If you don’t have this kind of open dialogue within your team, problems can sit for weeks or months at a time without even a simple discussion letting the rest of the team know that it’s something that needs to be addressed.
Make Time for Professional Development
At least an hour or two a week, let your employees know they can spend that time unstructured doing research on how to do their jobs better. This accomplishes two things. (1) It gives them a sense of respect that you trust them to make improvements to their position and the job process on their own, and (2) it develops their skills to be of greater benefit to your organization.
Leveraging Technology
Technology is one of the most overlooked opportunities in business today. Is there a software that costs $200 a month that could give your team back 20+ hours to focus on more important projects? Don’t look at these types of investments as some kind of additional expense. They are investments that can pay major dividends in your profitability long term.
Get feedback from your team on what process improvements you can be making internally, and empower them to speak with vendors and software providers that may be able to systematize parts of your business and bring those potential solutions to you.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, building a team isn’t that difficult. But you need to make sure that you have (1) a business that’s innovative and provides opportunity for personal growth, (2) a welcoming environment that encourages differing ideas and opinions, and (3) a system that rewards your employees when they go above and beyond to provide value to your organization. If you have all 3 of these elements, you are already ahead of the vast majority of businesses that are still trying to figure this out.
To get more help with accelerating your business, find out what MyCorporation can do for your business here: Contact Us.