The same is true for future hires. An advisor, salesperson or other job applicant may not yet have the skills necessary to fulfill an open role with your company, or your business may not yet be at the stage where it needs to hire another person. However, if you wait until you have an immediate need for an additional employee, it is already too late.
Similar to how you must continuously drip on clients and prospects to maintain a steady flow of business, you must always be in recruiting mode, ready to bring on another employee as soon as the current workload becomes too great for your existing staff to manage and do well. As Matthew Asser explained in his hiring cycle series, the process of developing a role, searching for and selecting a recruit can span six months or more.
In April, the 2012 Allied Workforce Mobility Survey was released. It indicates that many more companies are realizing the necessity of having a recruiting hiring strategy in order to secure and retain top talent. Out of responding human resource professionals, 52 percent admitted their existing strategies are only "somewhat successful." Additionally, those who think they have "highly successful" programs report that out of four choice candidates, they will typically lose one.
How do you decide when it's time to hire an additional employee or to create a new position in your business? Do you have a system for anticipating your workload six months, one year or further into the future? Are you proactively building a pool of skilled advisors, marketing experts and supporting employees who can be tapped at the point that you need more boots on the ground?
This can be part of the process of creating your one-, five- and 10-year plans. The number of new clients you plan to sign in the coming year or the additional markets and services you wish to branch into two or three years from now will serve as a measure for how many people you should bring on and what kind of skills they should carry.
As founder, president and CEO of The Covenant Group, Norm Trainor is often seen as the face of the company and its' leading financial advisor training programs. He has penned several best-selling books, articles and other works with entrepreneurs and financial advisors to show them how they can become more valuable to their clients, boost productivity and, ultimately, achieve the success they desire.
