Deciding if you're ready to hire

It may be time to make your first hire if you:

• have more work than you can handle
• regularly have enough surplus revenue to cover the costs of employment
• do not have time to respond to enquiries or look for new business
• are offered a valuable contract that you cannot complete without extra help

These are signs you have reached the limit of what you can do without extra people. You need to decide if:

• you want to stay at this level but be more selective about what work you take on
• you want to bring more people into your business so you can grow

Identify where you could use help by logging all your tasks over a period of time.

Over the course of a few days, list:

• the tasks you, and anyone else in the business, tackle
• the steps involved in each task and the time each step takes
• any difficulties you experienced completing the task, such as lack of skills or knowledge, software difficulties

Look for tasks that are:

• repetitive and regular – these might be better managed with software or automation
• things you struggle to do because you do not have the right skills, knowledge or confidence – these may be good candidates for external help
• things you have to do but you do not enjoy doing – these might be something you can recruit for

If your workload is consistent and growing, you may be ready to hire an employee.

But if demand is short-term or irregular and you are not sure you have the cashflow to cover the costs of an employee, you could:

• look at hiring temporary workers, using contractors or outsourcing tasks
• explore ways to automate tasks and improve productivity using software or AI