Articles

Hire Employees – Or Not?

Jana M. Kemp

News of organizational down-sizing has again spread across the Treasure Valley this week. However across the Valley, organizations are at the same time challenged by having too much work and not enough staff hours.

Overworked and under-recognized employees tend to leave. When an under-recognized employee doing good and great work for your organization leaves, you have an opportunity to learn what wasn’t working and to make positive changes. When an overworked employee physically stays on the job but mentally leaves, then the quality of work drops and next the overall morale of the work team drops. Being alert to the right staffing levels in your organization can be the make or break of financial success.

Here are some of the realistic questions and decision points related to having just the right number of employees. Does our current staffing level allow us to accomplish all the work we have to do? Will adding staff bring more or new revenue to us? Will adding staff free the business owner or leader to do what only he or she can do? Will adding staff raise productivity to levels that will more than pay for the added costs of hiring? Will letting go of staff allow us to stay productive, maintain quality, cut costs and still raise revenue or net profits?

And, is hiring an employee the only option? No. Separately from hiring a full or part-time employee you could pursue working with temporary employment agencies. These entities can help you meet the seasonal or cyclical workload demands of your company without causing you to have too many staff members during your slower times of year. Temporary employee companies handle payroll, benefits and taxes. They allow you to test the workload and overall staffing levels in your organization. And they allow you flexibility in finding the right person to hire once you are ready to hire a new employee.

Whether you work with temporary employees, part-time teams, or full-time employee groups, you always want to be available for questions, for on-the-job coaching and for performance reviews. All employees want to know what they are expected to do – clear job descriptions help here. Employees also want to know that they are doing a good job and want to be appreciated for the work being done.

Action Plan: Review your business operations to determine whether you have the right number of employees to accomplish the levels of work you expect and that the organization needs to be sustainable. Take action to get to the right number of employees.
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Reprint Permission: The author is willing to grant reprint permissions. Please contact Jana Kemp: jana@janakemp.com or call 208-367-1701.