The Skills Gap: It Pays to Use Experts

By outsourcing to skilled professionals you'll be able to grow your business without adding overhead.

Here are some of the costs associated with growing a business through acquiring staff:

* recruitment

* payroll and tax obligations

* national insurance

* employers liability

* benefits (pension, car, medical, dental)

* holiday pay / sick pay / maternity pay / water cooler pay!

* office space

* equipment or general office supplies

* legal responsibilities that include employee policies on working hours, sexual harassment, sick time, leave of absence, holidays, benefits, performance reviews, grievances, terminations

* training

* management

Do not underestimate the time and money involved in recruiting and retaining staff. Growing a business through acquiring staff is not Lean. Our focus is on making you money and saving you money.

Growth through recruitment, we believe, is a risky strategy. Growth through outsourcing involves much less risk.

Lets think about the risk of recruiting.

Put your hand up if you're a thief. Didn't put your hand up? Let me ask you some more questions.

Ok, have you worked for a company in the past? Have you been an employee?

If you have, did you ever take home a biro? Or a pencil? Or some paper or envelopes?

Did you ever make personal calls? Use the Internet during work time for your personal use? Respond to personal emails?

Have you ever taken a chair? Or a chandelier? Now I know this sounds extreme, but in some organisations we know, all of the above have been taken.

I'm a thief - I took pens and paper when I was an employee. I'm not sure how I justified it to myself at the time, but as everyone else was doing it I didn't think it would matter. That is until I started running my own business.

The point we're making is that an employee, no matter how great they are at their job, can walk away at the end of the day with no responsibilities. They may have their own hidden agenda, in fact, I bet even you were thinking about setting up your own business whilst working in someone else's!

These hidden agendas take your employee's eyes off the ball. They can't be giving you 100% when they're thinking about the argument they had with their partner or which nightclub they're going to tonight. In fact I once had a discussion with an employee which went something like this:

Me: "Lee {name changed to protect my bank balance} I've noticed that you don't seem to be getting your work done so well anymore. Is there a problem? Can I help?"

Lee: "There's no problem, I'm just kicking back a bit - I've had a few late nights with my band and my girlfriend's gone back to Brazil, so I'm a free man again! Wey hey!"

Me: "Hmm, though I appreciate that you have a life outside of work, when you're here, I expect and our clients expect that the work they're paying for will get done."

Lee: "You can't expect me to give 100% all of the time"

Me, with a curious tone: "Well how much should I expect?"

Lee: "I dunno, about 80% - let's say 70%"

Me: "Ok, lets say 70% of your salary goes into your bank this month then!"

Big smiles all around - not!

I know this guy's not completely typical, most employees probably expect to give you about 85%! That means 15% waste. We don't like waste do we! How do you finance the waste? By charging your clients more - this is the only way that waste can be financed if you want to stay in business. Do you think it's fair to be paying for that waste? Next time you're out shopping at the supermarket think that 15% of your food bill is waste (especially if you're like me and fall for those buy one and get one free tricks and end up taking stuff home that you'll never eat!) - wasted on unproductive employees with their own agendas.

It doesn't have to be this way. Think about you and the way you run your business. If you don't feel like doing something you don't do it. But you don't pass that cost on to your clients. If you have things that are bothering you, you put them aside when you're with your clients. You're a professional. Why? Because everything you do and everything you say has an impact on your bottom line. You know this. It's ingrained in your heart and your bank balance. You know whether you can afford to kick back for a while or whether you need to ramp things up and work outside your comfort zone.

And guess what, other people who are small business owners are the same as you. So by working with other professionals, who run their own business, have their agenda set out on their website for the world to see, who wear their vision on their sleeve, you will ensure you have a team who will look after you and your clients as well as you will.

Best of all, outsourced professionals have your interests at heart - if you're not successful, neither are they. Finding a team of professionals, who care about their business as much as you care about yours will add value to your clients. If your outsourced professionals treat you as well as you treat your clients, you'll all be laughing all the way to the bank!

This strategy forms part of our NotRecruiting.com? philosophy. Take a look on www.debbiejenkins.com to find out more, and to go into the details of not recruiting but growing through professional associates.

Speak Soon

'Dangerous' Debbie Jenkins
debs@debbiejenkins.com

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