While unemployment is still too high, we did our part today--doubling our workforce.
We did it! Finally bit the bullet, quit working so hard ourselves and hired two people to do some of the lesser-skilled clerical work (data entry and repetitive contact telephone work) that we (the owner, and I, the first employee) have been doing ourselves since we started up in March. What we do: outsourced expense management of telecommunications services.
The hirees:
- A fresh college graduate, who worked fulltime while attending college, taking the last year off from work to finish up, because the state's budget cuts resulted in his college scheduling his remaining mandatory classes all over the calendar, so he couldn't work 8 hours in a row any more. He had great IT and project management experience, and we're lucky to have him.
- A more experienced manager, just coming back from maternity leave to discover her job had evaporated while she was out. Again, good work history and skills, good work ethic, and amazing personality.
When we started, we were just looking for one person, but we got strong positive indications on another consulting contract this week, and couldn't figure out how one person could do all of the setup work within the time frames set out in our proposal. So we had the choice: do we turn away a good potential hire and potentially lose a contract because we can't promise performance, or risk a couple months' wages (and expanded office space expense) with the hope that things have turned?
To his credit, the owner chose to invest in the potential for our business.
Now, if everybody else who was working themselves to death, but too afraid to add help would do the same.