7 Steps to Find and Retain Quality Staff

Finding and retaining quality staff whether you’re hiring employees or contractors, can be a difficult task for many entrepreneurs. There are a myriad of reasons this is true. It takes a focused, strategic approach to hiring and growing your team that will help propel you and your business forward. Sometimes, though, no matter how well you have hired and how many strategies you have in place for a “good hire” it just doesn’t work out and you have to start over. Starting over with hiring and training a new employee or even getting a contractor up to speed on what you need done is a drain – physically and emotionally for the entrepreneur and financially for the business. How can you find and retain quality staff? Let’s explore 7 steps you can take that can help you increase your success. 1. Be very clear on what you want the individual to do. If you hire someone and they think they are doing A and you want them to do B and perhaps C, and you didn’t tell them up front, they may balk and leave. If you hire for task A but then add on B and C without further compensation you may have to re-hire or pay to train them, if you are interested. If you believed you were hiring for A, B, and C, you need to be clear about the tasks and the expectations for everyone’s benefit. 2. Leave the door open for negotiation on tasks and responsibilities. You may hire someone who far exceeds your expectations and your business grows. It may get to the point where, because of growth, you need to hire a new person who can take on tasks D and E. Don’t forget to ask the original hire whether he or she can, or wants to, take on those new tasks, if they have the skill set to do them. Don’t overlook a chance to promote from within. Just because you hired for a person for ABC, doesn’t mean that individual doesn’t have other hidden talents you’ve never discussed. The people that get you to one level, might be or might not be the same people to help you get to your next level of success. 3. Have a very clear and specific written job