One of the biggest overheads in any organisation is the staff payroll therefore getting the balance correct in terms of recruiting staff and pushing current staff can be a difficult act to get correct. There is a lot more emphasis on work life balance with many people complaining they are unhappy with the amount of hours they undertake and therefore do not have personal time with their families. One of the industries that come out tops in terms of working hours are those in the medical professions. The irony here is that these are the people we want to be sharp and refreshed due to the nature of what they are dealing with (our health) and these are the people that seem to be stretched the most. Here are some of the things to take into consideration on whether or not you hire new staff.
Current Load
If you have a lot of load in your company then you may wish to increase your headcount. One thing to be very conscious of though is if this is a temporary increase in load or something more permanent. If it is temporary then you may wish to check out recruitment companies for a temporary person rather than employ someone full time. If the load then maintains then you may wish to consider converting to the full time person. Even in the most pressured industry i.e. the medical industry, you will find that there are specific physician recruiter companies that should have a catalogue of people awaiting to start a job. Generally you can select someone to start almost instantly ad choose from their catalogue of people they have.
Staff Morale
If you have low staff morale in your company then you could have a high staff turnover problem where people leave. This clearly causes not only a lot of hassle for you but also it can be costly to recruit and train new employees. If your staff morale is low, you should look at the root cause of this by looking at things such as productivity, demand and output. The corrective action here may to actually recruit more staff in order to reduce the load and stress on your current employees. A good way to gauge this also is to maybe send out a survey to your employees and gauge their “happiness”. If they have the ability to complete this and remain confidential then there is even more opportunity here for them to be open and honest.
New Project / Expansion
If you are expanding your business or have a specific project that will require additional work then it is likely you will need dedicated resource aligned to this. If you push your current staff too much then it is likely their morale decreases and they could be a flight risk (as explained in the previous section). Think any project or expansion through clearly and ensure that in advance you have aligned the correct funding and resource in order for it to be successful.
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