Many business owners are currently struggling to find good, qualified labor. As their businesses grow and become more successful, they have greater need for qualified labor. I have seen this almost on a daily basis with the clients that I work with. 

Last week, I heard a talented speaker and economist, Jeff Thredgold.  He commented that, in future decades, the labor pool is projected to grow by only 1% annually.  The implication is obvious: the difficulty of finding help for growing businesses is a growing problem.

Whenever they feel short on time, the knee-jerk reaction of many owners and managers is to make a new hire.  The good news: when a small business owner thinks they need more employees, they usually are mistaken.  There are many steps that a business owner can take prior to making a new hire.

I encourage my clients to follow a system I call “The Order of Offloading”. The Order of Offloading is a system that most any business owner or business manager can use to decide if it's the right time to make a new hire. Before committing yourself to the responsibility of having a greater managerial and payroll burden, consider using this system.

The steps in The Order of Offloading are as follows:

1. Improve Personal Systems - You cannot know how much you are able to accomplish until your personal systems are maxed out or as efficient as possible.  By personal systems, I mean the way you handle voicemail, email, faxes, the way that you organize your work space, and the way you budget your time.  In my experience, most business executives stand to gain around two hours per day just by improving their personal systems.  The personal systems boot camp was designed to help people find those two extra hours per day.
   
   
2. Improve Business Systems - Very often there is a great deal of excess labor capacity in a small business. Consider one common example: an employee is hired to fill a position for forty hours per week. However, they soon find that the actual job only requires thirty hours, so the employee finds ways to stretch and slow down work to fill the full time. By building a solid organizational structure and business systems, you get the most out of your most valuable resources: human resources.
   
   
3. Utilize the Best Technology - New, amazing technology tools are developed every day.  This is one of the reasons I subscribe to the best technology magazines. I want to be a valuable resource for my clients in helping them make the best choice available.  Simple technology improvements can be valuable time assets, yielding precious minutes and hours back into your workweek. For instance, if you are using a five-year old computer that slows down every fifteen minutes, a simple upgrade can yield several hours per month to your time budget.
   
   
4. Consider Outsourcing Options - Is there an outsource solution that will work for the needs you have? Could you hire a printer broker instead of doing it all yourself? Could a professional graphic designer do a better job on that large project you are working on? There are even little outsourcing options, such as shoeboxed.com, which will scan all your receipts and make them available online for you for a nominal fee. When you consider outsourcing work to a company, make sure that their Company Values match yours. Otherwise, they may end up embarrassing you in front of your customers!
   
   
5. Prepare for and Make the Hire - If you have gone through The Order of Offloading and found that each of these steps has not solved the problem, or if you see that you have unfilled business needs that would add up to a part or full-time position, then it may be time to make a new hire.  Make sure that you have business systems in place for the individual you hire. This will allow them to make an immediate impact the moment they are hired.

One final comment: in a tight labor market, it may not be the best use of your time to go through the hassle of trying to find the right person. While the services of staffing services are not inexpensive, they are usually a wise investment. Staffing companies can save you valuable time and money and find qualified people to work for your company, especially on a "test" basis. If you do finally decide that the time is right to make a new hire, consider hiring trained professionals to make the process go smoothly.  

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