When you start a business or begin to grow, you have to think about recruiting.
Employing people to help you with the work becomes essential. However, many business leaders find reasons to shy away from recruitment.
Why Recruiting Matters
There are two critical reasons for recruiting extra members to your team.
The first is to meet demand. You cannot possibly do everything yourself if you intend to grow. Without enough people on your team, tasks will be missed or not completed correctly. Product and service standards can suffer, meaning unhappy customers and the start of the slippery slope to failure.
The second is to bring in essential expertise. You may be the best at what you do, but you need the skills to make all that needs doing is done, and done well.
For a business to succeed, it is vital to stay on top of your accounts, processes, production or service delivery, and customer and client care. Elements like these are too essential to try and ‘muddle through’ yourself. This is especially relevant as your business expands and you, as the leader, don’t have time to take care of everything yourself.
It is unfair to expect existing team members to take on these additional tasks, especially if they are unprepared or untrained in the work being asked of them.
Why People Avoid Recruiting
Among the leaders of small and start-up businesses, there is a fear of overextending your resources. As you start to turn a profit, it takes bravery to decide to invest in growth. If your market takes a downturn, you will be left with a wage bill you might struggle to meet.
Some bosses also struggle with the fear of getting it wrong when recruiting. It takes time and money to identify a new role, define it, advertise it, sort through applicants, interview, appoint, and welcome a new employee.
In most cases, there will be a probationary period in case the recruitment doesn’t work out. Yet, some leaders worry about choosing the wrong person, wasting all that time and money, especially when the wrong recruit could actually be detrimental to the business. It feels safer, or more comfortable, to do nothing.
Economic conditions can also drive attitudes toward recruiting. Your business may be doing well and need new people, but what does the future hold? Currently, the UK is gripped by an economic crisis and political uncertainty. Inflation is rising, the cost of borrowing is soaring, prices are up across the board, the pound is weak, and we don’t really know who is leading the country, or for how long.
Against that backdrop, bosses at even the most successful firms would wonder whether recruiting and growing the team is a wise decision. You are doing well now, but what about in six months or a year?
Why Recruiting is Essential
There are, of course, many more reasons why people worry about recruiting new people. But let’s focus on these points for now.
Fear of overstretching your resources is a legitimate and genuine concern. You must be careful to ensure that any recruitment is manageable.
But not bringing in new people because of that is counterproductive. If your business has reached a point where it needs extra employees to meet increasing demand and maintain quality, then not doing so restricts your ability to grow.
When you have a chance to move towards the success you desire, it is necessary to make brave decisions to seize those opportunities.
This leads me to the second point; fear of getting it wrong. I have spoken before about the need for bravery in business and not being paralysed by fear. Recruiting is one of the areas to which this applies.
Yes, you could go to all the time, trouble, and expense of running an employment process only to recruit what turns out to be the wrong candidate. But is that a reason not to try?
With the right processes, you could, and probably will, get the ideal person for the job. You may even find that you land a superstar who performs brilliantly in their role and takes the business another step forward.
Instead of the fear of getting it wrong, think about the fear of missing out. Somewhere there is the perfect recruit for you; talented, skilled, hardworking, and a great team player. If you don’t actively go and look for them, they will find work elsewhere, possibly with a rival. What does that mean for your business?
During the process, you may even meet a candidate who is not suitable for the role you are recruiting for, but would be an outstanding asset to your team. If you don’t try, as the saying goes, you will never find out.
As I often say, failure doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It is a valuable learning opportunity and a chance to grow. If you do end up offering the job to the wrong person, you will gain insights into how you recruit which will make all future appointments better and more likely to succeed.
The current economic crisis is a harder one to handle, as we must be realistic. Commentators feel a recession is coming (if not already here), and it could rival the Great Recession that started in 2008. Some fear it could even lead to a repeat of the Great Depression which blighted world markets in the 1930s.
Be positive and think of the opportunities. Other businesses are downsizing and freezing employment. That means there are talented, skilled people out there looking for work and ready for recruiting. They could be incredible assets to you, guiding you through the current and coming turmoil and adding real value to your company. They could be vital to surviving and thriving.
Additionally, uncertainty is causing many businesses to tread water and cut costs. They are compromising quality and customer satisfaction. If you not only maintain, but improve what you do, through recruiting and growth, you could win a share of their business. That means you not only ride out the economic storm, but grow during it and emerge bigger and better than ever.
Recruitment Must Continue
If your business has reached a point where it needs new team members to maintain the quality you care about, grow to the level you know it can, and help reduce the burdens that distract you from the ‘bigger picture’, you can’t dismiss recruiting to your company.
Put aside your fears about recruiting, be bold and brave, find the talent that will enhance what you do, and seize the opportunities that others can only see as doom and gloom.
