Every year, the team at Admin Slayer creates a theme to write about all year long; an idea or a concept to review from multiple perspectives - because, yes, we are that thorough.

In 2019, we were all about building your resilience, and in 2020, we demonstrated what that resilience looks like in real time, with stories from the businesses we support. For 2021, we want to help you strengthen your business through recovery.

You don’t have to experience a pandemic in order to require recovery. Every single time we face a challenge of any kind, even (or especially) when we’ve emerged victorious, we need to make sure we’re putting energy towards recovery. Facing challenges takes a lot from you and from your business, and just like with physical training, recovery is necessary so that you and your business have the ability to take on the next, even larger, challenge.

We started the year with the very important recovery action of taking stock of your business - something we recommend that you continue to do at least every quarter. Leaders are often so focused on the future that they miss the opportunity to review, reflect, and learn from the realities of their experiences. Making time to really think through where your business has been, and what you’ve learned is a key foundational activity for any business at any time, but most importantly, in recovery.

From there, we asked you to dive a little deeper and reflect on yourself, and your own leadership. We brought in Sandy Gunn to expand further on the idea, with articles on flexibility and authenticity. Then we took a short break from introspection to get granular about communications, which have become a great deal more complex since the world was forced to work remotely. Then we threw you right back into questioning everything when we asked you: is it time for a pivot?

We’re back to getting granular this month, thinking through a vital component of every business: Staffing.

You’re probably not surprised to learn that staffing, team building, and people management are always top of mind at Admin Slayer. It’s basically what we do, all day long. The reason why Admin Slayer is so compelling is because the people side of business is really, really hard.

It can get even harder during, and after, a crisis.

Why is the people part of the business so hard? Unlike so many other aspects of our business, people are simply not static. People grow, people change, people learn. People have personalities, preferences, and even crises of their own.

As a business owner, you are trying to maintain your personal life (you do have one, right? We’ve heard good things…), while also operating a complex business with its own set of rules, strategies, markets, operational components, and external relationships. Every time you add a staff member to the mix, you’re increasing the complexity you are managing by multiples. Each staff member comes with their own set of unique traits, needs, experiences, expectations, and opportunities. The people part is basically an entire business of its own.

When a crisis occurs, whether inside your business, your industry, or in the case of this pandemic, your entire world, your staff are impacted as well. Being whole human beings, they’ll even have crises of their own, and these will impact the work they do, which impacts your business, and your levels of success.

If the crisis is occurring on a business, industry, or world level, you’ll see quite a few layoffs. According to Statistics Canada, the recent pandemic caused 31.2% of businesses to lay off between 30% and 100% of their employees. In some cases, this meant the business itself collapsed and closed entirely. In other cases, the business was in such turmoil that it simply could not afford to pay employees - but that doesn’t mean the employees weren’t needed.

If you’ve been through a business crisis like this, you know that it meant cutting your own income, and likely working around the clock on the types of activities you’d much rather be delegating. Earning less than minimum wage is something many business owners, whether in startup or crisis, have unwittingly signed up to experience.

On the other side of the coin, your business may be experiencing a crisis in staffing for the exact opposite reason - business is not failing. Business is great. It’s so great that you don’t have anything close to the capacity you need to keep up with the flow.

You have a choice at this point: stay small and get really expensive or grow, hire, and get really complex.

Whatever your final decision might be, you’re going to be considering staffing on some level. You may take on employees and junior associates, managers, and other key team members. You may hire really cool companies to manage all of that for you. In any case, you’ll need to consider a few things to get started.

Do You Need More Help?

There’s no point in expanding your staff if there’s nothing for them to do, so it’s important to determine if you really do need more help. In the middle of a crisis, you may just be in so deep you’re simply looking for another set of hands to throw things at as they come your way. After a crisis, however, it’s really worthwhile to have a good look at what you have right now and what you need to get over there, where you’re going.

You’ll know that you’re ready to hire if you’re turning down work, having a hard time keeping up with existing work (and getting complaints), identified new sources of revenue, or experiencing quality issues. You’re running out of time to review your financials, answer those emails, and even take a quick break. If a week’s holiday seems utterly impossible, you know that you’ve run out of “you” and it’s time to get support.

Exactly What Kind of Help Do You Need?

This can be a tough one, especially if you’ve always been the one doing the things. Even if you want the help, it can be incredibly difficult to trust anyone to manage your baby business. Then… ugh…. hiring, training, and developing people.

Don’t go too far down that particular burrow just yet. Start with the first question: what kind of help do you really need?

If you’re not sure how to figure this out, we have a handy-dandy, quite short, ebook called The Art of Delegation (it’s free) which includes worksheets that can help you really hone in on what you want to let go of - and how to do it.

What Kind of Staff Do You Want?

You may deeply enjoy leading, developing, and growing people. You may want to have a reciprocal, dedicated relationship where you are just as invested in your staff as they are in you. You may want to see them in person (assuming such things are available to you) and may need them to do physical jobs that require them to be in person.

You may deeply dislike leading, developing, and growing people. You may not want to deal with the complexity of recruiting, hiring, and managing. You may have a business that works well in a remote environment.

The right kind of staffing is really dependent on you and your business. You may even find you have a mix of the two.

Your Staffing Strategy

You and your business are unique, and the exact structures, job descriptions, and level of complexity that you want and need should be defined by you. If you have an outstanding vision for your business, and your own future, clarity about what you really want out of your business, and how you expect it to grow, you’ll find the answers come fairly quickly.

(If you’re finding that the answers are not coming easily, now is the right time to review your purpose, vision, and values.)