Under what circumstances should we recruit people?

Many companies don’t pay close attention to details, they just recruit people when they have money. As for the specific number of tasks the company has and how many people it needs to recruit, it is more determined based on the head.

I have experienced this kind of blind expansion of a company. Because there was money in the account, it suddenly hired hundreds of people, and then after a few months, it was found that it was too much. There can only be layoffs. What was originally a good project failed to be completed due to blind expansion.

So, today I want to talk to you about the circumstances under which we need to recruit people.

In the early stages of a startup company, people are generally recruited based on their functions. When starting a company, there are many things that must be done by people. So at this time, if the founder cannot do it himself, the first reaction is to find a professional to solve it.

But there is a problem here. Although there are many things in the company, but broken down into each position, some positions do not have many things. If all professionals are hired to do it, the cost to the company will be huge. Therefore, clerks in startup companies usually wear multiple hats. Maybe the front desk, customer service, and administration are all the same person.

Of course, another way is to outsource and find a third party to do it. For example, the accounting of many start-up companies is relatively simple, but they also need a professional person to do it. The cost of hiring a full-time person is high. You can find a third-party financial company to do the accounting, which may cost about two hundred yuan a month.

Therefore, if the work can be quantified, it is reasonable to formulate a recruitment plan based on the specific workload.

Let me give you an example to give you an idea. If you compare a person to a cup, the workload is compared to water. A cup can be filled with up to 1L of water. If the workload of this position is 5L, how many people should you hire? The answer is that it takes at least 5 people to complete. Of course, in reality you may need to recruit 6 people, because people cannot work at full capacity. Have redundancy. Generally, it is more appropriate to arrange one person's workload to about 80.

Of course, the workload in reality changes dynamically, and you cannot estimate it based on the workload during the busiest period. Just like a driveway, you need 8 lanes to keep it open during the busiest times, but 2 lanes are enough during the least busy times. Just make sure that most conditions are normal. For example, build a 4-lane road.

Putting this scenario into work, the organization's response should be to require team members to work more overtime when they are busy and to take more vacations and rest when they are free. In many companies, it is more appropriate to allow overtime work to be taken off.

Back to recruiting, in addition to recruiting based on the quantification of workload, we can also recruit based on the value of value created, that is, how much income can be increased if I hire one more person. These are the two methods I have always recommended. Later I found that many times it is impossible to quantify. So is there any other way to judge whether to recruit people?

My experience is that you can guide yourself to think about whether to recruit people by asking questions.

First of all, we need to understand why we are recruiting people. Generally, before we recruit people, we will first define the job responsibilities of the recruitment position. This position is designed to solve a problem or accomplish a goal.

Secondly, we need to know what kind of people to recruit. What kind of person can solve the problems we have right now. How much am I willing to pay and what results do I expect?

Finally, how to find this person. And once you find it, how do you measure the value of your work?

If the answers to the above questions are clear, then you can start recruiting people. Otherwise, even if you recruit people, you may not be able to solve your problem. Hiring the wrong person is more costly.

1. Don’t think about solving the company’s management problems and organizational structure problems by recruiting people. For example, what we see in the company is that employees are working overtime every day, so they need to recruit people. But in fact, we have to judge whether there are many periodic things. It may be the peak season in the industry, so there is a lot of work during this period. This kind of periodic work can be solved through overtime or outsourcing. If you work overtime, you can be paid overtime or take time off, which most employees can understand. If you are recruiting people, it will be difficult after the peak season.

If you have a lot of work for a long time, your first priority should be to improve efficiency. The more people there are in a team, the worse the effect of recruiting people to solve problems, and the more obvious ways to improve organizational efficiency. There is a lot of work, is it really a lot? Or is there something wrong with the way everyone works and is wasting all their time? Or is it a demand management issue? Made a lot of useless functions? If you want to do everything, hiring people won't solve the problem.

2. Recruit people because there are targets. Especially in some companies with fixed lines, as a leader, even if there is nothing to do below, you still have to recruit people. There are not many people below, so can I still be considered a leader?

3. Because there is no one in the position, we need to recruit people. There is no one in the position, and there is no need to recruit people. In the early days of starting a business, many positions have few tasks, such as front desk and administration. One person can work in multiple positions, which is also good for employees' personal growth. If you have the opportunity to take a job rotation, be sure to try it. We have also talked about empathy before. Only by having work experience in the other party's position can we achieve true empathy.