There may well come a point when you are running your business when you feel you need to hire more staff. This could be your first hire, or perhaps you have employees already, but you are in a position where it makes sense to hire more. 

Before you write a job ad and start interviewing people, it’s important to make sure you really do need these staff members. It could be a costly mistake to hire people who aren’t going to help you in your business after all. With that in mind, here are some of the signs to watch for that suggest you don’t need to hire more staff. 

Photo by Christina Morillo

It’s A Short Term Challenge 

If you want to hire more staff members because you are extremely busy and you can’t keep up with demand, that’s a great situation to be in. Your business has grown, and you need employees to help you; you can’t do things by yourself anymore. 

But think about this carefully. Is the challenge you are facing just a short-term one? Is it a season blip, or is it something that will continue and perhaps even mean you need more than one new member of staff? If it’s the former, hiring someone is not going to be cost-effective, and it might be better to offer overtime to your current team or to limit the orders you can take. If it’s the latter, then hiring a new employee makes sense, and it should be something you do as soon as you can. 

You Can Outsource The Work

Although it can be seen as a sign of success, the truth is that hiring people and having employees is a lot of hard work and responsibility, and it’s not something everyone is going to be happy to do. 

This is why, if you feel you are in a position where hiring someone is the next logical step, consider whether you might be able to outsource the work instead. If so, this could be more cost-effective, and you won’t need to think about all the additional work and rules that come with having employees. If you have an EIN and you don’t have any staff, you can even look at how to cancel an EIN, and that could be of benefit in terms of your taxes. 

When you outsource tasks in your business, you’ll only be paying for the work that’s done rather than paying for someone to work full-time. You can save money and continue to work by yourself if that’s something you enjoy. 

You Don’t Have Time To Train Someone

As we mentioned above, when you take on employees, you need to take good care of them and ensure they are going to be working hard for the money you’re paying them. The best thing you can do is to train all new hires. In this way, you can be sure that they will work in the way that most benefits your business, they will work safely, and they will be as productive and confident in their work as possible. 

If you don’t have the time or the manpower (or perhaps the funds if you intend to outsource training) to do this, then it’s best not to hire someone until you do. Employing someone and then leaving them to work things out for themselves is a waste of time and money for all involved.