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Important Things To Know When Taking On Your First Team Members

When you launched your business, you most likely had high hopes for the venture, wanting to see it grow and develop over time. However, you most likely didn’t put much thought into what would happen when the business grew to a stage where you would need to get some extra help and start building a team of your own. 

The concept of building a team to help support your business is an extremely exciting one, as it marks an important step in the progress of your business. However, just because it’s exciting that doesn’t mean that it’s not also stressful, or at least that it can’t be stressful at times. After all, there’s a lot to think about when it comes to building your first team. 

The good news is that while building a team up to support your business operations can be stressful, there are plenty of steps that you can take to make the process simpler, easier and far less stressful. 

Photo credit: Pixabay

Wondering what these steps are and how you can ensure that the process of taking on your first team members goes without a hitch? Below is a guide to all of the important things that you should know when it comes to finding (and taking on) your first hires. 

For everything that you need to know, have a read of the handy guide below. 

Work with a recruiter

If you’ve never dealt with hiring a team before, it’s probably a good more to make to work with a recruiter to build your team. While you might like the concept of dealing with the entire process yourself, if you’re going to create a valuable team that is able to effectively meet your needs and help you to propel your business further, it pays to work with someone who knows a little bit about effective recruitment and can help to guide you through the process. You can hire recruiters to work with you in-person or virtually, which means that there are a range of options when it comes to costs, as well as the level of support provided. 

Outsourcing the hiring process completely to a recruiter isn’t the best idea, as you most likely want to be an active part of it. Instead, simply hire a recruiter to help source good potential candidates for each role. You could also work with a recruiter on nailing the job specification and other key elements of the advertisements you’re using, such as job perks, for instance. After all, if you’re going to get a good yield of candidates, you need to ensure that the roles sound appealing and worthwhile. 

Master the art of interviews 

Interviewing can be difficult if you’ve never done it before. So it pays to take the time to do some research into all of the best interviewing techniques and how to utilise them. It might also be worth having a recruitment specialist on hand during the interviews as an extra pair of eyes and ears to help support the process. 

The fact is that interviews can be stressful, so having an action plan, from questions that you will ask to any activities that you want to do, all planned out is a must. It’s important to be prepared for any questions that your interviewees may ask you as well, and know how to respond to them in a professional and informative manner. 

If you’ve never conducted an interview before, it might be worth doing some practice interviews on people you know, to ensure that you’re hitting all of the right spots when it comes to the questions you’re asking and the way that you’re conducting yourself. This is important as you want to make sure that you’re making the right first impression on your potential team members. 

Ensure the legal stuff is taken care of 

Once you decide on who you would like to hire, it’s important that you ensure all of the key legal stuff is properly taken care of. You need to make sure that you understand how to make a professional and formal job offer, as well as how to create an employment contract that covers all bases and protects you, your business, and your team members. 

The legal aspects of taking on team members are important, so it’s vital that you understand what the ins and outs are of this process. It’s not just about contracts, it’s also taking the time to think about workplace codes of conduct and how you expect team members to behave at work, as well as how you should behave at work. It’s also about having adequate insurance in place to protect yourself, your business, and your new team members. 

Create a nice workspace 

Once you’ve taken the time (and spent the money) to source, hire and onboard a team of key workers, you want to ensure that they stick around. After all, you’ve put a lot of time and effort into securing them for your business, and the last thing that you want to do is lose them. So, it pays to take the time to ensure that you’ve created a nice environment for your team to work in. 

If you’re not sure how to go about creating a workspace that your team will like and respond to, consider speaking to an office design specialist about the type of office environment you should be creating. You could also ask your new team members for the types of key features that they would appreciate their workspace including. Often, it’s the little features that make the most difference, such as large sized desks, multiple working area options (both personal and shared spaces), and different on-site amenities, like access to good coffee and air con for during the warmer summer months. It’s these kinds of things that help to ensure employee contentment. 

There you have it, everything that you need to know about taking on your first team members and how to ensure that you achieve the result that you want. 

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