What do YOU want?
In every conference, business lecture, and corporate event there’s talk about needs vs wants. It’s a simple concept in life. You NEED food, water, and shelter and you WANT an expensive wardrobe and a house with more rooms than people. When you are hiring, it can be tricky. Here are some tips about finding the difference between wants and needs when you are looking to fill out your team.
Needs
In order to find out what is the most important, you have to ask the tough questions. You may think you need an assistant, but in reality, you need a business manager or bookkeeper. Have an open discussion with your employees about what would make their
lives easier. Yes, we all want cookies in the breakroom, but ask them questions like:
Where do you think we could use someone to oversee quality?
Which parts of our process seem to be holding up the team?
Who feels like the team could benefit from additional training?
How many people do you feel are needed to carry out daily tasks?
Some questions may be better off asked in one-on-one meetings or through anonymous surveys. Often, the most difficult questions to answer in groups are the most necessary for getting to the bottom of employee struggles.
How do you feel about management? Could they use additional training or assistance?
Explain what you need in a good leader in order for you to do your job?
Do you believe hiring or training would increase production?
How often do you fall behind in work because of the workload?
What are the jobs that you are actually responsible for vs the jobs you were hired to do?
These questions can help you see where the gaps are in your company. On the outside it may look like you only need to hire additional sales representatives, but if your current reps are also getting the mail, fixing internet problems, and filling in for managers, it might be in your best interest to look into executive assistants, IT gurus, and additional management instead. The important thing is to look for consistencies in responses to see where the real needs lay.
Wants
Here’s where the cookies in the breakroom come in. If you get scattered responses asking for more sales reps, it’s important to note that that may be a need in the future right now, but could be a want right now. Your company could live without a new sales rep if you hired the correct people to take over the additional responsibilities that do not fall under a traditional sales reps’ job.
Here are some things to ask yourself about wants
What is your dream for the future of the company?
What things would make life easier, but would not affect the company overall?
How big do I want my company to be in 5 years?
Am I being honest about how important my wants are?
After you’ve asked yourself and your team about their needs and wants, you need to go over them again and see how many things you thought were needs but are wants upon closer inspection.
It’s important to understand what your company actually needs to be successful. Sometimes hiring is not as easy as just patching up the walls when there is a problem with the foundation. When you come face to face with a recruiter, it is good to know what you really need. Being invested will help the process go by quicker, and it will save you money. There is always someone out there you can hire, but that might not be the right someone to hire.
If you have any further questions about what you can do to find the right fit for you, send us an email and we can set up a free consultation to answer your questions.