One of the things we love doing is to invite area experts to contribute to our blogs or newsletters from time to time so to share their knowledge with our clients and contacts. Sandra Reder is the President of Vertical Bridge Corporate Consulting, a Vancouver-based firm specializing in employee attraction and retention strategies www.verticalbridge.ca. She has great tips on what to do when hiring your first few employees as your business grows.

1. Be clear on who you are and what your vision, values and goals are as a company.  This is critical when you start to engage new employees.  You’ll want them to share the same vision, values and goals.
2. When you realize that you can’t do it all, be prepared to “let go of control” of the responsibilities you will be passing on to your new employees.  Entrepreneurs often have a very hard time doing this as their companies are the result of a lot of hard work and it’s sometimes tough to “let go”.  Be prepared to take a ‘leap of faith”.  Do not bring anyone onboard if you are not ready to do this.  It’s a recipe for disaster.
3. Develop a well thought out and accurate job description for the position you will be hiring for.  This helps you get clarity around what your expectations are of the new hire but it also helps them to understand the scope of the role they are taking on.
4. Find out what current market value is with respect to compensation for this type of role.  You want to make sure you’re attracting quality candidates.
5. Develop a series of questions for the interview that will help you to identify whether or not the candidates have the right experience and background to be successful in the role. The questions should be aligned with the requirements you have identified in your job description and with your corporate values and goals.
6. Identify the tools you want to use to source good candidates i.e. advertising on job boards, accessing people through various social media sites, referrals from your network, outsourcing to a professional recruiter, etc.
7. Remember to always ask for references from potential hires.  Ideally you want at least 2 references from people they reported to in their prior jobs as these folks can speak to their performance.  Make sure you check them, this is critical!
8. Get legal advice on how to prepare an offer letter.
9. Ensure once you have someone onboard you remember to provide them with some good orientation and training.  Statistics have shown that the highest turnover within organizations happens within the first 3 months due to lack of proper onboarding and training.  First impressions are lasting impressions!
10. Finally make a point of agreeing to do a review with the new hire within the first 3 months just to let them know how they’re doing.  Feedback is important!