Staffing is likely to be one of the critical decisions and one of the bigger costs in your business, especially if you plan to provide a service. 

Even small businesses are run by people. Taking effort to select the best people will always pay off. Planning how many people, what they will do, what they need to know, what skills they must have, where, when, what they will work with, and how much they will earn is a critical task before actually employing anyone.

Do this staffing planning up front, noting that more people do not always make a business more pro­fit­able, but they do normally make it more complicated.

A good recruitment process will help you to pick the best staff for your budget. Take time to consider where to find your staff, exactly which kind of people and what skills they must have must be thought through. From my experience, always go for the person with better personal characteristics such as good communication, honesty, integrity, and responsibility, rather than just technical expertise or skills.

For smaller start-up companies, try to employ persons who have more than one capability. For example employ a sales­person who can also do general management or find a bookkeeper who also has good legal knowledge etc.

The recruitment process includes:

•   Targeting where to find your staff (e.g. those graduating from universities or colleges).

•   Selecting and interviewing staff from these target pools (do background checks on a shortlist of candidates – reference, finance and qualifications checks).

•   Making a job offer – it’s a good idea to offer a short initial term of employment to make sure that you have the right candidate. A candidate may fool you during a one hour interview, but they will rarely fool you for the duration of a three-month work contract.

•   Having a formal induction process – this is especially true for larger companies.

•   Having a retention strategy – this must include training your staff.

•   Having a termination process – for staff who have poor work performance or who break the employment contract.

It would be advisable as a new businessperson,

to seek help from human resource and labour law professionals when hiring or dismissing staff. For the ‘Staffing’ section of your business plan, create a description of all the work to be done. Estimate what types of work and how many of each type of workers are required.

Training

Training of staff can be an emotional issue. After all, you have spent a lot of time and money recruiting the correct candidates, why should you spend more to train them?

School-leavers, graduates and new employees may certainly have some good skills and experience, but this will often not be an exact match to your company needs. Your business, especially as it grows in experience will learn ways of doing things that are not commonly understood. These are often called proprietary practices and are the very thing that makes a business stand out and do better than similar businesses.

There are many businesses which make hamburgers, but only one business that has been extraordinarily successful at making profits out of hamburgers worldwide – you guessed it – McDonald’s. Your staff will need training in your unique way of doing things. They will need to be introduced to your company’s culture (way of doing things), customers, and values by means of induction training.

For services companies, it’s important that those delivering the services are technically sharp (up-to-date and skilled). How many of you at school, college, or university learnt how to give excellent customer service, how to strategically sell a product, or how to raise finances for a business?

Do not forget to get training for yourself, as running a business has a steep learning curve to conquer. Often one day of training can save weeks of misdirected effort. Training need not always be expensive, one can do self-learning – by buying appropriate books, or doing research on the Internet.

Wayne Mallinson has 23 years of software testing experience, many of which he gained whilst running his own company. Wayne is also the editor in chief of Test Focus – the leading software testing magazine for Africa. He has also delivered numerous testing talks at conferences locally and internationally.