Deciding When To Hire

On today’s show we are talking about staffing. We’re reading daily headlines of staffing cuts at companies across the economy. Just in the past week we’ve seen headlines of 1500 people let go at Spotify, 3000 at TD Bank, 1000 Track maintenance workers at Union Pacific Rail, 1200 at Broadcom in the SF Bay Area just to name a few.

The question is, how does a business owner know when is the right time to hire, and when is the right time to reduce the workforce? Money comes into a business in one of three ways:

1. Earned income
2. Residual income
3. Capital gains

Workforce reductions are among the hardest decisions for a business owner or a manager to make. But in truth, the hiring decision is almost equally difficult. Both decisions involve solving a problem.

In the case of hiring, chances are that the organization is stretched and having a hard time keeping up with the workload. Hiring can bring some relief to overworked people and both customer and employee satisfaction can improve with the right hires.