Business is booming, and your employees can hardly keep up with the amount of work on their plates. This is good news insofar as it means your business is doing something right to consistently bring in new clients. But it should also prompt you to consider hiring more staff to supplement your current workforce.
Overworked employees become resentful, experience burnout, and ultimately leave. The last thing you want during periods of understaffing is for your workforce to shrink further. The right staffing solutions can help you prevent employee burnout and take the burden off overworked employees.
When To Consider Hiring More Staff
You may not feel certain that hiring staff is the right solution for your business. Perhaps this is just a temporary period of increased workloads that will subside after a few weeks, and hiring additional employees would not be worth the time and expense involved.
Start by conducting a workload analysis to evaluate task delegation among your team. If the workload exceeds what your current team can handle, this may be an indicator that hiring at least one new team member would be beneficial.
You might also consider hiring more staff if:
- Your employees feel overworked: It is pretty easy to tell when employees are overworked and understaffed. They might stay late frequently to finish work, appear frazzled or stressed, and skip lunch breaks.
- You are regularly paying overtime: Instead of placing the burden on existing workers to increase their hours and paying them time and a half, hire a new worker to take over that workload.
- Your turnover rates are high: High turnover could be contributing to your understaffing problems, but it also could be the result of them. Employees who are overworked quickly experience stress and burnout, eventually leading them to quit.
Tips for Hiring Staff for Overworked Departments
If you have decided to hire new staff to support overworked team members, follow these tips to improve the process:
- Consult employees directly, listen to their needs, and even involve them in the hiring process.
- Conduct resource planning to determine whether new hires fit into the budget.
- Consider starting with part-time, freelance, or temporary workers and extending the contract into a permanent position if the need arises.
- Monitor new employees closely to evaluate their performance and understand how they have improved task delegation.
Work With an HR Professional To Strategically Hire New Staff
Before you start looking for new workers, consult an HR professional to ensure that you approach the process strategically and successfully. They can help you assess the actual work done in your business and evaluate overtime needs and work delays. Then, they can create job descriptions to help attract the perfect new hire to alleviate burdens on existing workers.
45 Solutions: Your Fractional HR Professionals
Are you considering hiring staff to support your existing workers? 45 Solutions can provide fractional HR solutions to assist with the entire hiring process. Book a call today to learn more.
