Creating a Hiring Plan to Reach Your Company’s Goals

By Koleen Singerline

Imagine you’re sitting at your desk and the phone rings. It’s the top salesperson of your chief competitor. “The boss is ready to retire and he’s closing the company. I’m looking for my next career move and I wonder if you would have a few minutes to see me?”

If your answer is yes, then you are like many managers.  You understand that key talent is difficult to find and pivotal to your company’s growth. Making sure your company has access to the right talent is one of the most important jobs of a leader.  Having the right people in place is a primary key to reaching your company’s goals.

To ensure that the right employees are in place to support your business strategy, you need a hiring plan. Now is a good time to create a hiring plan for 2013. Your plan should include information on:

Your company’s business strategy:

Assess what’s important to your company. Take into consideration your company’s core values, culture, mission and overall strategy. These aspects should all be evaluated when developing your hiring strategy, as they should all be aligned and flow together.

Your current staff:

• Do you have the right people in place?
• Does the current staff create the culture you want to achieve?
• Is everyone working to capacity?
• Is training needed to increase skills?
• Is turnover an issue for your company?
• Do you need to rethink your current job requirements?  Are you expecting too much? Are you demanding too little?
• Is anyone scheduled to leave or retire?
• Should you upgrade technology to make your staff more efficient?

The staff you will need for future plans and projects:

• Do you need to upgrade any of your current staff?
• Is there a career path in place for each team member?
• What additional staff is needed to help you reach your goals?

Once you have determined what staff you will need, lay out the plan for how you will recruit and qualify your staff. Do you have a recruiting manager? Will hiring managers be responsible for their own staff? Will you partner with a staffing agency to help you identify top candidates for your team?

Onboarding new hires and setting a career path within your company are additional issues your hiring plan for 2013 should address.  If the turnover rate for your company is high, you will need to improve your communication with new employees to assure that they are assimilated into the team.

Taking the time to think through these issues and create a strategic hiring plan, will go far in creating company success. If you would like help developing your staffing strategy or would like to place a job order, click here to contact us .