Creating a New Position

Your company is growing; the demand is reaching critical mass and you’re not sure if you can keep up with your current staff. Sure, you can start overclocking your workers until their cogs fall out of place, but hiring a new employee would be so much easier. So is it the right thing to do?

In most cases it would be, but there are certain situations in which you have to weigh your options to see if it’s truly worth hiring a new employee. There are three important factors you need to account for to make this decision: rate of production/service rendering, employee overtime hours, and company budget.

Rate of Production/Service Rendering:

The first step is to identify whether you truly need to be thinking about hiring another hand on deck. The most basic thing you can check is whether your company can meet the demands of all your customers. If you’re capable of meeting demands even with a few growing pains, then there’s no problem. But if you’re really struggling, or you sense you will be soon, then it’s time to take a look at your options.

Employee Overtime Hours:

Once you see that the work is not being finished on time it’s time to look at employee hours. If you look at the time tables and see employees coming in late and leaving early then it’s time for a group meeting to talk about putting in the hours they’re being paid for. If you find that the opposite is true then it’s time to look at step three.

Company Budget:

Plain and simple, in most cases like this your company will put up the money to hire a new employee. A new employee means more work can be done which ideally means more money coming in faster and just a fraction of that will go towards salary, benefits, and training. It’s far better to have workers with a little extra time at the end of the day than workers working feverishly for all 8 hours because then you wouldn’t be getting quality work out of your employees.

All of these categories need to be balanced in order to justify hiring a new employee. If the scales are tipped then you might find yourself with a profitless quarter or a building full of disgruntled workers. That’s something you don’t want.

How do you discern a few company growing pains from the signs that you’re in definite need of a new employee? Share with us in the comments below.

IMAGE: Courtesy of Flickr by Casey Serin