Before You Hire Another Employee, Check These 7 Things

The company is growing. There are more orders, the inbox swells, the phone rings more often, and the list of things “for later” never ends.

The first conclusion seems obvious:

we need another person.

Sometimes it really is like that. If the team has its hands full of meaningful work and uses its time well, an additional employee may be the best investment.

The problem begins when a new person is hired not to expand the company’s capabilities, but to take over some of the existing chaos.

After a few months, the company then has a larger team, higher costs and… exactly the same problems.

Messages continue to get lost. Data is still transcribed manually. Everyone responds to customers a little differently. The owner still has to approve half of the decisions, and employees still ask:

“Where can I find it?”

“Who handles this?”

“What should I text him back?”

“Can I do this without asking?”

Therefore, before you open another recruitment process, it is worth checking whether you really lack people.

Maybe you’re just wasting too much time on things that shouldn’t look the way they do today.

1. Find out where the time really goes

“We have too much work” is a feeling. It is not yet a diagnosis.

Before you hire another person, spend a week or two checking what the team actually does.

You don’t need an elaborate system to measure every minute. All you need is a simple list of the most common activities:

• responding to customers,
• searching for information,
• data rewriting,
• preparation of documents,
• updating statuses,
• contact with the warehouse,
• checking payments,
• transferring matters to other people,
• correcting errors,
• participation in meetings,
• reporting,
• order processing.

After a few days, something interesting often comes to light.

The team actually works eight hours a day, but only part of that time creates real value.

The rest disappears in activities such as:

“I’ll check Instagram again.”

“I need to find this email.”

“Wait, I’ll ask Kasia.”

“Where was that sheet?”

“I’ll paste this into our system.”

“Has anyone responded to this client before?”

Each of these activities takes maybe a minute or three. The problem is that it repeats itself dozens of times a day.

Do a simple calculation

Let’s assume that five people waste 40 minutes a day searching for information, switching applications and manually transcribing data.

This gives:

200 minutes per day.

Over three hours.

Within 20 business days:

over 66 hours per month.

That’s almost two full weeks of work for one person.

So before you hire someone for another 160 hours a month, check whether you can simply get the first 60-70 hours back.

2. Count how often you do exactly the same thing

If an activity is performed once a month, it is not worth building a large system around it.

If it is performed 30 times a day, the situation is completely different.

In customer service, a great example is repeated questions:

“When will the delivery be?”

“Can I get an invoice?”

“Is the product available?”

“How to make a return?”

If an employee writes a response from scratch every time, the company pays to create the same text hundreds of times.

It may look something like this:

• preparing the same offer,
• transcribing data from the form to CRM,
• manual creation of statuses,
• sending the same instructions,
• informing other people about the same problem,
• copying data between systems.

It is worth following a simple rule:

if we do something regularly and almost always in the same way, the question should arise: does a person really have to do it from scratch every time?

This doesn’t mean automating everything.

Sometimes ready answers for live chat are enough.

Sometimes a checklist.

Sometimes one common information base.

Sometimes integration between two systems.

Or sometimes just removing an unnecessary step.

3. Make sure the new hire would not mainly be asked to “handle everything”

This is one of the most dangerous terms in recruitment.

“We need someone to keep track of all this.”

What exactly does “everything” mean?

If this question is hard to answer, you probably don’t have a position yet. You have a set of problems.

The new person then gets a random mix of responsibilities:

• some emails,
• some orders,
• some social media,
• some documents,
• some contact with the courier,
• some sheet corrections,
• a little bit of everything that others won’t have time to do.

This may even work for the first few months. Such a person becomes a buffer that absorbs chaos.

The problem comes later.

The company grows, the responsibilities increase and suddenly it turns out that no one knows:

• which tasks are really important,
• what do we expect from this position,
• how to measure its effects,
• what can be delegated further,
• what can be automated.

Before you hire, try writing one page:

“What specific deliverables will this person be responsible for?”

Not a list of 40 activities.

Results.

For example:

• every customer message receives a reply,
• orders are processed on the same day,
• complaints have an owner and a deadline,
• the offer is prepared within a maximum of 24 hours.

If responsibility cannot be clearly defined, first structure the process.

4. Check how much work exists only because information is scattered

This is one of the most underestimated costs.

The employee does not complete the task. The employee looks for what he needs to complete the task.

The order number is in the store.

Customer message on Instagram.

Previous arrangements in email.

Information from the magazine on WhatsApp.

Price in Excel.

Document in Google Drive.

And suddenly, answering one simple customer question requires opening five places.

Just switching between applications doesn’t look dangerous. But the more systems there are, the greater the cognitive cost.

Every time you need to remind yourself:

• what am I looking for?
• where is it,
• which record applies to this person,
• whether the data is up to date,
• has anyone changed anything yet?

This problem is very easy to confuse with a lack of employees.

The team seems overloaded because everything is taking too long.

In fact, no more hands are needed.

Less searching required.

In communication with customers, an example is messages from customers in one place. If messages from live chat, e-mail, social media or other channels are sent to one place, the employee does not have to remember to check several separate applications.

The same principle works in virtually every area of the company:

information should be as close as possible to the place where the decision is made.

5. Check whether the owner or manager is the biggest bottleneck

This is an especially common problem in small and medium-sized companies.

The team theoretically has competences, but practically everything goes through one person.

“Ask the boss.”

“I don’t know if we can.”

“Let’s wait until he comes back.”

“He knows this customer.”

“Only she has access.”

In such an environment, hiring another person may paradoxically make the situation worse.

Why?

Because there is another person who will also need the owner’s decision.

Today, if five employees ask you three questions a day, you answer 15.

After hiring another person, there will be 18 of them.

And after another two - 24.

The company is growing, but decision-making still ends in the same place.

Therefore, it is worth writing down questions for a few days that go to the owner or manager.

Then divide them into three groups.

Decisions I really have to make

For example, a large investment, an unusual contract, a strategic client.

Decisions that someone else can make according to clear rules

For example, a discount up to a certain amount, re-shipment of the shipment, acceptance of a minor complaint.

Questions that shouldn’t be asked at all

For example:

“Where is the current price list?”

“What is the return procedure?”

“Which form should we send?”

If the owner responds to the third category, the company does not need more employees.

I need better organized knowledge.

6. Check whether problems come from a lack of simple rules

Not every company needs an 80-page manual of procedures.

But every company needs some answers to the question:

“What do we do when X happens?”

Example.

The customer writes that the shipment has not arrived.

The employee can:

1. check tracking yourself,
2. write to the client,
3. contact the courier,
4. refer the matter to the manager,
5. put it aside for later.

If the company hasn’t set the right path, each person will do something different.

One will solve the problem in five minutes.

The second one will spend half an hour asking other people’s questions.

The third party will refer the matter to the owner.

The fourth will forget to return to the client.

Then we come to the conclusion:

“The staff has too much work.”

Not always.

Sometimes the staff simply have too many decisions to make from scratch.

Good process does not mean depriving employees of their independence. On the contrary.

It gives them clarity on when they can act on their own.

Start with the 10 most common situations

Don’t describe everything.

Choose the ten issues that come up most often.

For example:

• return,
• complaint,
• delayed delivery,
• no product,
• change of address,
• request for a discount,
• invoice,
• foreign client,
• order cancellation,
• a question requiring an answer from another department.

For each answer:

Who makes the decision?

What can he do without asking?

When does it escalate?

Where do we save the result?

This change alone can significantly reduce the workload on the team.

7. Check whether you really lack capacity—or just priorities

Finally, the hardest thing.

It may be that the process is quite good, the automations work, the knowledge is available, and the company still has too much work.

Then employment may be exactly what you need.

But before that, it’s worth asking one more question:

Are we doing too many things that don’t need to be done?

In companies, tasks that once made sense grow very easily.

The weekly report that no one reads.

A meeting that can be replaced by three sentences.

Manual compilation, even though the data is already available in the system.

Manager’s approval for a decision worth PLN 20.

Copying messages to a spreadsheet “just in case”.

CC up to five people.

Two workers checking the same thing.

Before you hire another person, divide the tasks into four groups:

Task	What to do with it?
Necessary and requires a human	Leave
Necessary but repetitive	Simplify or automate
Necessary, but wrong person doing it	Delegate
Does not provide significant value	Delete

The last group is the most interesting.

The best way to automate an unnecessary process is not to automate it.

This is a process deletion.

So when is it really worth hiring another person?

After going through all seven points, the answer may still be:

yes, we need another employee.

And that’s good news.

If:

• the most important processes are organized,
• repetitive work has been limited,
• information is easily accessible,
• the team has clear competences,
• the manager does not block everyday decisions,
• unnecessary tasks have been removed,
• and yet there is still more valuable work than available time,

recruitment is not an attempt to extinguish the problem.

It is an investment in increasing the company’s capabilities.

The new employee then goes to an organization that knows what it needs from him.

He’s not hired to “help sort things out.”

Has a clear role, process and purpose.

That’s a huge difference.

A simple test before recruitment begins

Before publishing your ad, answer these seven questions.

1. Do I know what exactly the team is spending time on?

If not - measure it for a few days.

2. Are repetitive activities simplified as much as possible?

If not, start with the most frequently performed ones.

3. Do I know what specific result the new person is responsible for?

If the answer is “to help”, clarify your position.

4. Is the information needed for work easily accessible?

If not, organize your tools and sources of knowledge.

5. Can employees make daily decisions on their own?

If not, set the limits of responsibility.

6. Do the most common situations have a simple, understandable process?

If not, describe the first ten.

7. Have we removed tasks that no longer make sense?

If not - before you add another person, remove some work.

Hiring doesn’t fix the process

A new employee can expand the company’s capabilities.

However, it won’t automatically fix a bad way of working.

If five people function in chaos, a sixth person will not suddenly make the chaos disappear.

Most often it will increase its scale.

More communication.

More information sharing.

More questions.

More places where error can occur.

Therefore, before each recruitment, it is worth treating team overload as a signal for a short audit.

Maybe you really need to hire.

But it may well turn out that several dozen hours a month can be regained by a few simple changes: a common inbox, better templates, clear responsibilities, automation of one process or simply deleting a task that no one has needed for a long time.

And only when you do this can you answer the right question:

no “do we have a lot of work?”

only:

“do we have more valuable work than the current team can do?”

If the answer is yes, hire.

FAQ

How do I know if I really need a new employee?

The best signal is a permanent lack of processing capacity after organizing processes, removing unnecessary tasks and reducing repetitive work. Just feeling constantly in a hurry is not enough to make a good decision.

What to check before hiring an employee?

First of all, how the team’s time is used, repetitive tasks, access to information, division of responsibility, decision-making processes and tasks that can be simplified, delegated, automated or completely removed.

Can automation replace employment?

Sometimes yes, but not always. Automation works best with repetitive activities, data rewriting, simple notifications, templates and tasks based on clear rules. It should not be treated as a universal substitute for humans.

How to find the most time-consuming processes in your company?

For a few days, write down the most frequently performed tasks and the approximate time of their completion. Pay particular attention to activities performed repeatedly every day and tasks that require switching between several systems.

When is it worth describing the process in the company?

When a given situation repeats itself regularly, it involves several people or requires re-determining the course of action each time. The process does not have to be a complicated procedure - often a short checklist and a clear division of responsibilities is enough.

Does increasing your team always increase productivity?

NO. Each additional person also increases the cost of communication, implementation and coordination. If the process is messy, a larger team may actually increase the number of problems.

What should come first: automation or process improvement?

First, simplify the process. Automating an unnecessary or poorly designed process only causes inefficient work to get done faster.