Start-up businesses have a wide range of issues to consider when they open for business, from initial financing through to a marketing plan and hiring personnel. Choosing your place of business is potentially the most important, and Worcestershire is an excellent choice as a start-up location.
The City of Worcester is established with quality infrastructure, including super-fast broadband. Excellent railway connections make it easy to reach customers across the country, while local start-ups based in Worcester can even take advantage of an initial start-up fund contribution from the local council.
Tips for hiring your first employees
Social media is key for any hiring activity today. From placing your job advertisement through to checking out a candidate’s own social media profile, make sure that you make the best use of what local Worcestershire pages and forums can offer to hiring managers. Not only can you increase the number of candidates that apply, but you can also gain insight into candidates beyond what the interview process would typically deliver.
Make interviews a two-way process – the candidate should be a good fit for your business, but you should also allow a candidate insight into your working and business culture by encouraging them to ask questions. While interviews should not be overly structured, it is useful to have an interview plan and a list of questions ready so that you’re able to have a flowing conversation with your candidate.
Benefits of employing contractors
Start-up businesses often find it difficult to predict their rate of growth, growing in bursts and spurts that make it difficult to manage a team of permanent employees. Contractors are an excellent option to cover job responsibilities for temporary periods, or to very quickly ramp up the capacity to help customers.
There are other advantages to making use of contractors – hiring a contractor that works with an umbrella company will save you a significant amount of time by removing the need to deal with numerous pieces of paperwork and tax issues. It can be any kind of contractor from a web designer for work on your business web site to a 24 hour local locksmith service to change the locks on your office. In addition, whether a contractor is employed via a limited company or an umbrella company, you have the benefit of not being tied down to a long-term employment contract.
Building your team
As you build your team of employees, try to put together a balanced workforce. Variety and differences in opinion can be strong drivers of creativity and growth, if the employees you recruit fit in with your company culture and have a collaborative approach to working. Worcestershire has a good pool of skilled workers and should allow you to establish a core of loyal employees that can define and build your business for the future.
Don’t forget that a start-up business is in the process of defining its long-term future, and even new and junior employees will be able to give you valuable feedback on what they think the direction of the company is. Just as the interviews are a two-way process, so is continued employment – regularly talk to your employees as individuals and in groups so that you can establish whether your company is on the right track.