It can depend on your industry, and the growth of your Business, as to the time it might take you to get to the stage of employing your Office staff, and growing your business.
Part of what I am referring to here is looking at what order to employ staff, and considering whether it is better to hire a Sales Team Member or an HR Team Member.
Although, I am writing this more for the security industry, and concept can be used in different industries when the time comes to employing staff.
Often the first employees a Security company will hire is Security Staff, which often occurs, to cover the workload which you have- for example, licenced venues for crowd controllers, and in some States, the numbers may be dictated by the conditions on the license. It might be Patrol Officers or companies who offer a Patrol service or Security Guards if you offer a Guard service.
When Security companies decide it is time to increase their office staff, often one of the first person’s hired will be the Bookkeeper/ Account keeper, to ensure invoices etc are being sent out, which helps with improving the cash flow. Although this decision might change, if you are moving into commercial premises, and then you might look at an Admin person to answer phones, who can also complete the book work.
When all is going well, and the business has grown, which has multiple sites, and the rosters are becoming a full-time job, a Security company will then consider either promoting someone to a Supervisor, or Operations Manager position, who can help with the rosters and talking to clients. So at this stage, we probably have a CEO/ Manager Director, Admin person, Bookkeeper, Ops Manager, then we might decide to consider a Sales Person, who can try and grow your business more to help you with the increased cash flow required for the business.
However, at this stage, I would suggest considering holding off on the employing of a Sales Member and consider employing an HR ( Human Resource or People and Culture) person into the company. An HR Person can help you with your Performance reviews, Policy, and Procedures, compliance with Legislation, OH&S, quality Control, however with helping your performance reviews with your staff, it can help your staff remain happy, and if your Staff are happy, they will complete a good job, and ensure your clients are happy, which in itself can be a great sales tool In the meantime the CEO or Operations Manager if chosen correctly can be your sales staff responding to the phone calls the company receives looking for a security service. In a Lot of industries, a good Website can be more effective than a sales person, as people will come to you.
The important aspect for a security Manager to remember, is often people will look at hiring Security based on 2 reasons- one is something happens, and a security threat or break in as occurred, the 2nd is because of Legislation requirements e.g. the industry they are in, recommends they have security e.g. licensed venues.
My Recommendation is, an HR Person, can be more important and add more value to a company, than a dedicated sales Staff member, so please consider this before hiring that staff member………….So always be careful when employing someone, don’t always look at the relevant skills to the position you are actually employing for, but think of what could benefit the company in the long run- what extra skills do they have on top of the current position opportunity.
