Filling The Empty Seat

While there are many demons that visit business owners in bed at night, one ranks consistently at or near the top of the nightmare list – staff.

I see staffing as consistently presenting four challenges to businesses:

• The empty seat kills your momentum. You know you could take on more business or expand locations, if only you had more qualified staff on board to deliver.

• The empty seat erodes service. You aren’t quite servicing your customers as you promised, and they can take their hard-won business elsewhere.

• You, and often your other key staff, spend time, money and angst on staffing issues with no lasting impact on the staffing problem, except distracting you from what you are best at – running your business.

• You and your key staff have to work harder and longer to pick up the slack of empty seats, burning them out and eroding morale.

‘Empty seats’ are also the poor hiring decision you made that has you stuck with a chronic under performer – a figurative empty seat.

Here are some practical lessons for SME’s that can actually make a difference.

Write down exactly why you need to hire a new staff member. Are your people working too long or their work not getting done? Is there an opportunity to grow or can you service your customers better with an extra person?

Get into the nitty gritty of tasks. Define what each of your current staff do and what tasks aren’t being done that need to be.

Then allocate the tasks to your current staff based on their strengths and preferences. With the tasks that are left over, do you have a coherent job description for the new hire? You may need to re-allocate tasks more than once to come up with a workable mix.