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August 28, 2009 Today I attended a meeting where we were attempting to develop a partnership with a company to promote our speaking business. The person we were talking to is a small business entrepreneur who is involved with and oversees a number of businesses. We were asking for his feedback concerning topics that might be of interest. He mentioned that there seems to be a lot of people talking on many of same topics and that he often obtains little value by attending these sessions. He felt that most of the presenters have come from larger organizations, talk in a different language and don't really understand the needs of an entrepreneur. For me this was very much an eye opener. In recent blogs, I have been talking about ensuring your employees can align with your company's vision. But if a small business owner's initial concern is how to go about hiring their first employee, there first concern will not be ensuring you employees align with the company's vision. Hiring an employee seems relatively basic to someone who has been working in the Human Resources field for many years. But even with an Human Resources background, most Human Resource Consultants have worked for larger companies that already had payroll departments that looked after all the government deductions and so offhand, would not have a great amount of knowledge about all the legislated deductions. However, at least with my background, I know what is required and can find that information. But what if I didn't know what was required? I would try to find someone who truly understands my needs or at least will listen to me and quickly learn about my needs. And here is the big "aha" for me. Assuming me client is an entrepreneur, I can now put myself into their shoes and start thinking about what I would do if I was them. And if I was hiring an employee, the first thing that I would be to figure out what I really wanted my employee to do. What would their level of responsibility be? From there, I would determine the behavioural and technical skills that I wanted this person to have. From there, I would find out how much that I would have to pay to find such a person. I would then find out all the other costs involved in hiring a person such as vacation pay, employer health tax, employment insurance, workers' compensation, employee health benefits, etc. to determine the total cost. From there, I might look at other alternatives such as hiring a contractor or hiring an employee through an agency. Each of these are large topics in themselves which I can now go and learn more about so that I can truly be of service to entrepreneurs. As I think about this, I realize I can develop a checklist or a process may which I can truly use to help my clients. I am now think that I can create a great presentation plus other products that truly be what the client wants
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