Chapter 1
Looking at the Big Picture â Before You Employ
In This Chapter
Working out what staff you really need
Finetuning your recruitment strategy and process
Understanding the importance of an employment contract and other rules
Getting the best from staff
Remunerating staff appropriately
Avoiding discrimination, bullying and workers compensation in your business
Ending the employment relationship properly
This business would be perfect if I didnât have to manage staff.
Anonymous small-business owner
D eciding to introduce an employee into the business is a really important move for small-business owners. The commitment is similar to the other financial investments made toward the success of your business but with one important difference: Youâre employing a person, not buying a piece of equipment.
I often use the analogy of a personal relationship to explain to small-business owners the nature of the relationship that you enter into when you employ staff. You start with the search for the ideal person, and then experience the initial joy at having found someone who seems to satisfy all of your desires. Next, you get to know each other and (hopefully) develop a rapport and solid foundation to your relationship. Then you settle into the long (sometimes short) journey towards what, in a working relationship, is the inevitable end of that relationship. During this employment relationship, youâll experience highs and lows, learning experiences, personal growth, exciting events, great achievements and regrettable mistakes. The lifecycle of employment has myriad rules and regulations that must be followed and every phase of the employment relationship creates unique challenges. Hopefully when you look back over the life of the employment relationships that you have with staff, youâll have only (or at least mostly) good memories.
In this chapter, I briefly take you through the employment relationship, from the initial search to the (hopefully) amicable end.
Understanding Your Reasons to Employ Staff
Some employers incorrectly assume that because a job has been performed in a particular manner in the past, that is the way it should be performed in the future. Nothing could be further from the truth. When a vacancy arises in your business or when you experience a moment of inspiration linking more staff to more business and profit, take the opportunity to test your thinking before you go ahead and employ someone.
Analysing what you really need
Deciding to employ staff for a job should arise naturally from a rational analysis of the operational needs of the business. If the analysis shows you donât need to employ, donât do it. However, if the analysis suggests that employing someone would be a good idea, go ahead with a clear understanding of the reason you have for doing so.
Job analysis is a basic tool to determine what type of job is needed for your small business. This means applying a simple procedure known as
workflow design combined with an understanding of the chain of command (
organisational relationships) to identify how tasks and decisions should be grouped to create a job. These concepts are covered in greater detail in
Chapter 2.
Perhaps youâre wondering what phrases like âjob analysisâ and âworkflow designâ have to do with you. âIâm just a simple small-business owner who canât be bothered with this techno babble!â I hear you scream. While these terms may seem rather remote and daunting, analysing the flow of work within the context of a thorough understanding of who does what and when, and who decides what should be done and when, enables you to understand the reasons to employ people and the responsibilities that they must perform when employed to provide the best return on your investment.
Putting workflow design to work
In Chapter 2, I show how to conduct a simple job analysis using workflow design. Here, Figure 1-1 shows how the process works just to whet your appetite. The skills, knowledge, personal attributes and abilities of the people that you employ are applied in an organised operational system combining raw materials and business infrastructure to produce goods and services. The areas that you concentrate on for the job analysis are shown in the shaded boxes in Figure 1-1.
Figure 1-2 shows how you can outline your business organisation structure. Doing so allows you to visualise:
- Accountability of people in the business to each other
- The efficient allocation of tasks and responsibilities
- The lines of communication necessary to keep the business coordinated and production moving
- Who has authority in making the key decisions
Of course, the information highlighted in the preceding list isnât all written down on your organisational chart. But to these building blocks you can add your analysis when deciding to recruit new staff and designing the job to best suit your business. Very large businesses tend to apply very complex methods to this task. Your small business has the advantage of being able to perform this task simply and more swiftly, thus enabling you to move quickly to adopt a competitive advantage.
See Chapter 2 for more on job analysis and designing a job that best suits your business needs.
Your Recruitment Strategy: The Key to Successful Employment
You must complete three fundamental tasks to help you select the best person for the job. The first task is describing the nature of the job including its purpose, range of tasks, and organisational context in which the person ...
