First member of staff

[kev]

Hi all

Business is growing and the work is too much for one person now so I need to hire my first member of staff, I was thinking of hiring my cousin, he has all the skills I need but family ties might make things complicated, has anyone got any advice on hiring staff? is the job centre the best place to go to advertise for new staff? also do you tend to get what you pay for e.g higher the wages the higher quality of applicant.

Thanks

Kev

[Neil]

is the job centre the best place to go to advertise for new staff?

Now that i finished laughing and got up off the floor,

This may surprise you, but all our best staff came from 2 ads that we placed on gumtree about 6 years ago, they have stuck with us since. You do get a load of useless applicants as well, esp from foreign counties looking for summer work, but may be worth a try still. Obviously times have changed in the last 6 years.

Beware of working with family - it has it disadvantages as well,... alot of them! Also don't think that a higher paid worker is the best worker and don't forget youth, get the right ones and you won't look back.

Added: What i have done for the last 2 years is asked existing staff, if they have any friends / family looking for work, they tend not to pick the slackers when they know they have to work with them.

[Andrew]

What i have done for the last 2 years is asked existing staff, if they have any friends / family looking for work

Agree completely with that sentiment, this is the method we have stuck two over the last several years and it has served us very well, no one has left anyway!!

In eCommerce there is a lot of easily exported sensitive data that employees can come in to potential contact with so you have to be very careful about your employee vetting procedures.

[Gillf]

In eCommerce there is a lot of easily exported sensitive data that employees can come in to potential contact with so you have to be very careful about your employee vetting procedures.

Wise words... The last time I was recruiting I had a couple of applicants who ran their own web businesses (on a much smaller scale) they probably thought that was a good thing to put on their cv's but it was a real warning sign for me. Needless to say they did not get a job offer. Instead I chose someone who had the right skill sets but experience in a totally different industry and no plans to start their own business!

[powertoolworld]

I was thinking of hiring my cousin

Quick answer - Only employ him if you dont like him and never want to speak to him after 6 months!

I have employed 2 friends and 1 family member none of which I now talk to. I employ complete strangers and give them a specific role and limit their access to that role.

My recent employees have come through the jobcentre and to be honest I am very pleased with the result, just be aware that you will get 100+ applicants within a week, 90% will be a waste of time.

One invaluable piece of advice I got was to choose the person which has the spirit and determination rather than the the paper qualifications (this can be taught your way). My warehouse managers application was in the bin, after 10+ phone calls I decided to take another look and it is one of my better decisions.

Good luck

[kev]

Thanks for all the advice, think ill tell my cousin its just not going work out :D

so what I need is a someone with lots of determination but isnt interested in starting there own business some day and seems trustworthy

[little-linguist]

The job-centre will attract a lot of applications from people who are being forced into work rather than want to work. For our last job advertised, we got a lot of handwritten-on-scrap-paper type applications, another one that looked like there was a piece of the applicant's lunch stuck to it. You may find your perfect employee though so don't dismiss it.

Think "outside the box" as others have suggested. It depends on your field of work, but if you use Twitter / Facebook, advertise there. You may have some fans who'd love to work for you. We recently had a part-time term-time only job available, so naturally very appealing to Mums (and Dads) who wanted a job to fit school hours. We therefore approached the local schools to see if they'd let us advertise on their noticeboard / newsletter / website (some did, some didn't).

[Laura@FYP]

I hired my niece as our first member of staff 2 years ago. Its had its ups and downs, but on the whole not too bad and although she is leaving us soon we are all still friends! That said, there have been times when I felt as though she needed to move on but felt too awkward about it because she was family- as it happened, she approached me a month ago to say she wanted to start a career in a different field so her exit has been very mutual! Ive had another member of staff who came from Facebook who has been with us a year, and no problems at all. I reently advertised for a new full time member of staff on facebook and through the jobcentre- we had hundreds of job centre applicants....and have gone for someone from facebook who starts on Monday!!

[Stix]

In a past life recruitment was my profession. I think the assessment process and the induction is the key to getting it right. Set out your expectations up front and nip annoying habits in the bud - it's much harder to back track, be honest if you have quirks that they'll need to work around and make sure your don't fall into the "saint" trap of liking or pitying someone so much you gloss over whether they're right for the job. I've met countless managers who've employed a "nice but dim" person that they're desperate to sack. Ringing up references before you offer a job and having an off the record chat is a really good way of revealing stuff about their work ethic - just make sure it's not their current employer, that's poor form. If you're after someone with niche skills, a bit of head hunting is always good fun too. Even if they're not interested, they'll generally know someone who's on the look out.

[kev]

One of my main worries is stock going missing, how do you protect your business from unscrupulousness employees, I know the bluepark software keeps track of the stock levels but the problem is one of the jobs I want them to do is to update the stock levels when new stock comes in or items are returned.

[powertoolworld]

You have to find someone you can instill trust in. I have a fabulous team but I still only let senior members mess with stock. It is not the theft aspect but the fact that they put stock back in whatever code they feel like and your stock levels go out of the window, but then when you come to stock take your first thought is theft and then all trust goes out of of the window.

I suggest that you do the stock management yourself and let them do the manual side of the job then you keep tabs on everything.