Balancing hiring needs with financial constraints

As your business grows, so do your hiring needs. Whilst new hires can unlock the next phase of growth through avenues such as product / operational / business development improvements, they can also be expensive. When you’re looking to balance hiring needs with financial constraints as a growing business, the way forward is a strategic approach that provides you allows you to hire in a cost-effective way without compromising on candidate quality.

As a Founder or People Leader in a growing business, here’s how you can find the balance:

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Prioritise new hires (ruthlessly) 💫

Which upcoming hires are absolutely essential to your company’s success over the next 12-18 months? Take stock of your open roles and determine which are most critical. Use this to form your priority list of hires; this will help you focus your hiring efforts (i.e. money and time) on the most important positions and only those positions.

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Leverage your existing team 🤩

This is criminally underused in the startup and scale-up world. As a leader, you should be encouraging your current employees to refer candidates from their personal and professional networks for your roles. Not only will you save on hiring costs, but you’ll also gain access to better hires; referred candidates tend to have higher retention rates than sourced candidates.

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Build your flexible workforce 🏋️‍♀️

Using freelancers and contractors to complement your permanent workforce is a powerful way to grow your team, maintain momentum and keep a lid on costs whilst doing so. Not only will you save on the cost of benefits, taxes, and other overhead costs typically afforded to permanent employees, but the flexible nature of using freelancers and contractors leaves you more agile to make quick adjustments as and when the market moves in unpredictable ways (See 2020, 2021 and 2022…)

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Automate hiring processes ⚙️

Automating suitable aspects of the hiring process, such as scheduling interviews, candidate comms and early-stage screening, will help you save time and money. Using an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) to automate these processes will free up time to focus on providing a better, more engaging experience for candidates at human-only stages of the hiring process, such as interviews, feedback and offer delivery. Many of Canda’s customers use Teamtailor, which provides a suite of analytics for hiring process efficiency and offers a customisable suite of automation capabilities you can tweak to your needs.

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Develop a Long-Term Hiring Plan 📈

Granted, in recent years it has been difficult for so many businesses to take a long-term view on hiring rather than focus on short-term buoyancy. However, to squeeze the most out of hiring needs and financial resilience, developing a long-term hiring plan in alignment with your business goals is the way to go. Thinking long-term can help you avoid costly mistakes that come from reactive, short-term hiring decisions.

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By paying consideration to these tips, we hope Founders and People Leaders can balance find ways to strike a healthy balance between hiring great talent and navigating financial constraints along the way. With such an intense focus on financial resilience and effective use of capital right now, there’s never been a more important time to explore ways in which you can adopt a balanced approach for your business.