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Mind Tools Newsletter 153 - May 11, 2010
Time for Someone New?
During the recession, we've been forced to do more with less - and often that has meant that people have become stretched to their limits.
Now, with economic growth being seen in many of the world's leading economies, it may be time for some "growth thinking" to start easing the situation. Perhaps you're considering bringing someone new into your team, so that you can create the capacity you need to expand your output?
In this issue of the newsletter we examine the question of When to Create a New Role. Knowing when and how to expand your team is an essential skill for growing businesses, as is understanding the risks involved in the various options.
Through the optimistic lens of growth, we might rename our next new article "Why Do Projects Succeed?" But learning from mistakes is always valuable - so we look at Why Do Projects Fail?
Finally, we feature one important way to avoid failure - with the tools and techniques of Stakeholder Management. (For those who want to go extra mile in stakeholder management, we recommend our latest Bite-Sized Training piece in the Career Excellence Club, entitled Winning Support for Your Project.)
Enjoy today's articles!
James Manktelow and Rachel Thompson
MindTools.com - Essential skills for an excellent career!
Featured Resources at Mind Tools
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Your team's workload is increasing. Should you hire a new worker now, or wait until your team is overworked? This article helps you decide.
All Readers' Skill-Builder |
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| Projects can "fail" for many reasons - not delivering to cost or quality, missing the deadline, or simply not meeting expectations. Find out how you can avoid these outcomes.
All Readers' Skill-Builder |
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| Learn how to manage stakeholders so that they engage positively and supportively with your project. All Readers' Featured Favorite |
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... And From the Career Excellence Club
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| To deliver a project successfully, you almost always need the support of key people. Learn how to identify whose support you need, and how to get it.
All Members' Bite-Sized Training™ |
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| In this interview, London Business School Professor Julian Birkinshaw shares his views on motivating teams and the value of experimentation in the workplace, and explains how else managers can be more effective. Premium Members' Expert Interview |
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| To communicate a message effectively, you have to think about more than choosing the right words. Learn why you may need to pay even more attention to tone and facial expression.
All Members' Skill-Builder |
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| Your business strategy determines how you're going to win in your marketplace. Learn how to bring together different strands of strategic thinking for maximum impact.
All Members' Skill-Builder |
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| "Linchpins" are people who are vital to the smooth running of an organization - and they exist at all levels. This book shows you how to become one. Find out more about it here! Premium Members' Book Insight |
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Editors' Choice Article
When to Create a New Role
Choosing the Right Time to Expand Your Team
Has your team had too much to do lately? Are people increasingly stressed, because of the volume of work they must complete?
Or perhaps sales forecasts show that volumes will increase dramatically. You're getting nervous: if this happens, you won't have enough people in place to handle the resulting workload.
So how do you know when to hire new workers? After all, there's a lot to think about before you take new people on!
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Time to hire someone?
©iStockphoto/MephitBlueStudio |
In this article, we'll look at when to consider creating a new role, and what you need to analyze before making the investment. At the end of each section, we'll give an action step that will help you make the best decision for your situation.
When NOT to Create a New Role
Hiring a team member at the wrong time or for the wrong reasons can waste a lot of money. There are several factors that do not justify a permanent addition to your team:
- Seasonal increases in workload - If your team is overworked at specific times of the year, then hire temporary help to relieve the workload.
- One-time or unusual projects - If your people are responsible for delivering an unusually large project that's outside either the type or volume of "business as usual" work, then consider using contractors to meet this temporary change in staffing requirements. You can use contractors to do the project work itself, or you can use them to do the regular work of your permanent staff, whose expertise you need to deliver the project.
- Sick or vacationing team members - Again, temporary staffing can help fill these gaps.
- Complaining staff members - If people on your team complain about their workload, then make sure they're managing their time well. You can fix poor time management much more easily than hiring someone new to do some of their work.
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Action Step: Before you decide to hire a permanent addition to your team, make sure your people are managing their time effectively, are properly resourced, and are working as efficiently as possible. Also, make sure that their heavy workload isn't just temporary. |
When to Consider a New Role
So, what does justify creating a new job in your organization?
- Consistent work overload - The main indicator that your people need extra help is that they're consistently overloaded with tasks and projects. If they work hard and manage their time effectively, then adding a role will increase your team's productivity as well as reducing stress.
- Regular use of contractors - Do you already use a lot of temporary workers, contractors, or freelancers? If you regularly hire outside help, this could mean that you need a permanent person.
However, it's important to consider the costs of this move. On one hand, if you hire contractors and freelancers, you can get rid of them as soon as you don't need them. On the other hand, they often cost more per hour than your permanent staff, and they generally don't know your organization as well. Analyzing the hidden costs as well as the more obvious ones will help you decide whether to use contractors or create new, permanent roles to get the best overall value for money.
- Improvements in the economy - The state of the economy is important when creating new roles. Many organizations restructure and downsize their teams during a recession. When things begin to improve, they often want to rehire. But it's not necessarily that simple! If a role was eliminated, there might be laws that determine when it can be reactivated, so talk to your HR department early in your decision-making process. They'll be able to advise you on whether you can create a new permanent role, and what the scope of the role can and cannot be.
- Time spent on tasks that don't need your expertise - Your own schedule and tasks can determine if you need additional help. If you spend most of your day performing tasks that could easily be done by someone less skilled (and therefore cheaper), then creating a new role could actually help you increase revenue or productivity. This would free some of your time to focus on more profitable tasks and strategies.
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Action Step: Determine why you or your team needs additional help, and identify the benefits that an extra person would bring. You'll need to be quite clear about this to get your request approved. |
When and How to Structure Team Growth
You have three options for creating a new role:
- Option 1: Hire in advance - Here, you proactively hire someone before your team gets really busy. This is risky, because if the expected increase in workload doesn't materialize, then you'll be overstaffed, and you'll be exposed to all of the extra costs that go with this. However, hiring in advance allows you to train new people before workloads increase, so that you can maintain turnaround times and quality levels.
- Option 2: Wait until the need is obvious - If you wait until work volumes increase to a level where people are over-stretched, then you'll have to recruit and train during a very busy time. And by the time your new worker is well-enough trained to be effective, you'll have risked upsetting existing staff because they're overworked and stressed.
- Option 3: Compromise with a "halfway" plan - Here you hire someone part time. The advantage of this is that you can expand your team by a smaller number of hours each week. The disadvantage is that the person you hire will probably want to work only part time - and if your work levels continue to increase, you won't be able to use the new person's growing expertise and skills on a full-time basis.
If this is the case, you can hire another part-time worker, or you can eliminate the part-time role and hire a full-time person. Although these two options give you more flexibility, they'll take more time and training, and they'll disrupt your team.
You could also hire someone to fill two roles, dividing his or her time, if you don't have quite enough work in just one role. This can be an effective solution in the short term. However it often isn't sustainable over the long term, partly because it's hard to find a replacement who is capable of performing both tasks, and partly because people can tend to gravitate towards the roles they most enjoy, and neglect less appealing ones.
Action Step: Investigate how likely it is that your organization will grow. If you're not confident that things will really get busier, then delay creating a new role; but if you think your workload will grow, then carefully consider whether to hire now or wait.
Both options have benefits and risks, and it's important to choose a path that’s right for you, your team, and your organization. |
Using the HR Department
In all but the smallest organizations, there are usually protocols to follow when creating a new role. If you need approval from HR, then you must follow their procedures.
Every organization is different, so it's impossible to list the exact HR steps to follow. However, you'll probably need to do the following:
- Calculate the cost of the new team member, and identify the source of the money.
- Provide a business case for the new role.
- Write a detailed job description for the new role.
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Action Step: Contact your HR department to learn their requirements for creating a new role. This process takes time, so if you need to hire soon, it's best to start work now! |
Key Points
Creating a new role takes time and careful thought. Start by identifying why you or your team needs help. If you have a temporary increase in workload, or if several workers are out sick or on vacation, then hire temporary help. If business forecasts show a big increase in the near future, then carefully consider your two main options: hiring now to train the new team member, or waiting until business has already increased.
If your organization requires HR approval, then make sure you have the budget for a new role, write a detailed job description, and learn about other HR requirements for the approval process.
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A Final Note from James
As Western economies start to recover from the recession, companies will start to shift their focus away from cost reduction, and will start to gear up for growth. So how well prepared are you for this?
Today's article helps you decide when to recruit new people, and that's certainly a key part of shifting your focus towards meeting increased demand. But what else do you need to do? It's worth taking some time to think this through.
We're back in two weeks looking at how you can be better organized. And we'll also be investigating how your attitude can impact other people's behavior.
Join us then, and enjoy Mind Tools in the meantime!
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James Manktelow
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Mind Tools
Essential Skills for an Excellent Career! |
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