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While building their web start-up brick by brick, many budding entrepreneurs tend to ignore an important aspect – hiring scalable resources.
We have heard about companies building scalable IT infrastructure, but rarely have we come across anyone harping on the essence of building scalable human resources for their company.
Technically put, scalability is your ability deal with unforeseen situations that are hallmark of running a web start-up in the long run. Entrepreneurs are usually advised to build a scalable IT infrastructure in order to meet the upcoming technical challenges down the line as they grow in size.
For instance, a start-up company should consider spending decently on their employee work stations, servers, and other technical requirements right from the beginning in such a way that it meets the changing demands from time to time down the line as the company grows bigger. Web start-ups that compromise this aspect tend to suffer financially as their workforce faces challenges to up the productivity in the long run. Often, it results in loss of productivity and critical revenues as well.
While the conventional business wisdom teaches us to consider scalability for building IT infrastructure for our enterprise, it doesn’t say much about building a scalable workforce. If you are a web start-up or an ambitious entrepreneur, consider building a scalable workforce very seriously as it critically affects your overall business operation in the long run. Deliberating on hiring scalable resources is both time and money worth spending for, and it is a decision you will be extremely proud of when you grow in size and, as the iconic Steve Jobs say, try joining the dots backwards.
Defining Scalable Workforce:
More often than not, web start-ups tend to build their enterprise on a business model that is increasingly based on boosting their revenues. They try to acquire business opportunities as and when possible and start hiring people indiscriminately to churn out deliverables in order to meet the deadlines with an impressive turn-around time. However, many of us forget about the most critical part in the process of hiring people indiscriminately – hiring resources that can stand the test of time. What does that mean?
In today’s competitive business landscape, we constantly look for people who can multitask and learn quickly to take up higher responsibilities as the organization grows bigger. As a matter of fact, of all resources we hire annually, barely 20% of our annual hire are able to live up to the transforming demands of our business. This is the prime reasons why sometimes we fail to promote an internal employee even though there is a potential opportunity for the same.
Promoting an internal employee is the first step we take as we consider the costs of hiring an outsider and training them to teach the business dynamics before they are able to perform at par with our expectations. There’s an increasingly lower chances of a brand-new employee to come and imbibe the established company culture and gel with the existing workforce. In such a scenario, a new employee is often left to perform under pressure, and falls flats in the face of increasing organizational challenges.
With a scalable workforce, we spend little time worrying about promoting the best performers for the right positions and save ourselves the potential aches of looking beyond the existing employees within the organization.
How to Hire Scalable Resources:
Hiring scalable resources involves the process of redefining your interview priorities and looking beyond the immediate needs of potential candidates.
- Imagine you are going to interview the candidates not only for the current profile, but also for the unforeseen profile that they are likely to live up to when the situation demands it.
- Many candidates come to grab a job without giving a second thought to its long-run demands. Be sure to scan through their resumes and weed them out. You should have the incisiveness to figure out if they have the ability to stand the test of time and evolve gradually as the company grows.
- Recognize the hidden talent, skills or managerial traits of a potential candidate, even if they are appearing for the bottom-line profile in your company.
- Test their technical and communication skills to know whether they stand any chance for promotional considerations down the line.
- Talk to them about their career goals and find out if they have a planned approach towards pursuing a career within your industry and within your company.
Hiring quality resources is the best foot forward to building scalable resources which critically decides which direction your company will move. Web start-ups need to spend considerable time to deliberate on their approach to hiring the right resources. This single decision can potentially make or break the future of any start-up web enterprise.
