Creating and maintaining the right personal image for you and your company

I have learned a rule of business when I took an entrepreneurial course - it is to hire people before full capacity of production is reached. In fact, it is best to hire and train new people once 80% capacity is reached, so that there is time to hire and train properly.

So what is the result when great training is not provided? New employees leave. The owner still is overworked. Customer service, sooner or later, is sacrificed. Unhappy employees will talk badly about the company. These are detrimental to the company image.

It is unfortunate that many entrepreneurs I know do not calculate their capacity, and end up only hiring people when they realize that they have been overworked. What usually happens is that the owner works too much overtime, then hire a person, but cannot train the person properly. So these new employees leave the company, one after another, leaving the owner not knowing what s/he cannot hire a proper person to handle jobs that are seemingly simple.

The hiring person must keep in mind, especially entrepreneurs - what may be common sense to one, may not be common sense, or even making sense to another, when not communicated clearly.

People are hired based on the skills that they can bring onto the job. But these skills may not be apparent if people are not trained well on the company process and expectations. Mostly what happens when and if there is training, is that the person is trained to do a job, without extensive explanation or orientation of how the position affect the other parts of the company.

The solution? Here are the steps -

1. Calculate your capacity now. And plan what position and people will be hired after 80% is reached, so that training may be prepared.

2. Train the new employee on the tasks to do on the job.'

3. Train the new employee on how their position affect the rest of the company - examples - how does the paper trail move around the company once a sales order has been made? Who is reponsible for what departments? What is the "flow" of the company from marketing to prospects to customer follow up?

4. Communicate clearly - it means not assuming that anyone in the company can read your mind! I find it funny how many entrepreneurs expect people to be able to read their minds and follow instructions that are only half communicated.