Don’t “hire” until you see the whites of their eyes…The take off from the famous quote uttered at the battle of Bunker Hill, when the revolutionaries where greatly out numbered, had little ammunition, no training and few experienced leaders, yet looked into the eyes of the enemy without fear.
This exemplifies the exact attitude one must have when considering hiring additional employees.
The actual quote was of course, “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes,” exclaimed to make certain every bullet counted and none were wasted. It was a bold, dangerous yet effective strategy which led to an unexpected victory.
We can take a lesson from this situation and save ourselves allot of money while making certain we install the correct attitudes necessary for effective management.
The tendency is to hire sooner then necessary, or allow overtime which is very expensive. Managers and business owners tend to ramp up before they absolutely need too, and thus incur excess overhead and build in low productivity as a benchmark.
My advice is to never hire until you are forced to, “…until you see the whites of their eyes.” or until you are simply unable to process the work load in a reasonable time period, then, when it seems as though everyone will burst from overwork …hire.
Along the way, find ways to increase productivity so the same number of employees put out more work…that’s efficiency, ( see incentive based reward system, in this blog) that’s building profit, and that’s controlling overhead while maintaining growing production.
This is a better plan, develop an increase in productivity rather then simply hiring either in anticipation of need or even after the need is clearly evidenced. Wait till you see the whites of the enemies eyes: late delivery, backed up orders, paperwork not being processed in time, a bottle neck somewhere, and after extracting the most productivity you can out of the existing situation and current work team, then and only then, when it feels like you are unable to absorb one more order…then start looking for additional help.
Only when you have exhausted yourself and your people with training and incentives creating greater productivity bringing it to its maximum potential, then…hire.
Excess payroll, and the resulting payroll taxes and employee benefits, coupled with accepting low productivity from the existing employee team, is a major cause of lost profitability, too high overhead and an early demise. Lean and mean coupled with high productivity is the best path to go and needs to be a fanatical commitment for one to succeed at the level desired.
The opposite is even more true, to much payroll, too many employees and is the cause of many failures. When revenues are declining, reduce the payroll as soon as the trend is identified. Yes, you may want to overlook small declines or momentary reductions in demand, but once it is noted for a period of time adequate to be identified as a trend, cut the payroll, keep everyone working to their maximum potential while maintaining the highest productivity.
Reduce the employee base as soon as the trend is identified and do not increase it again until the existing group is producing at the highest efficiency.
Its a tricky balancing act, balancing the employee base with productivity and always working towards maximising the outflow with the least possible number of employees.
Hiring too soon or holding on to employees too long are the two most costly errors of good management judgement that are frequently made.
Wait till you see the whites of their eyes before you hire, and fire as soon as you see the trend.
I know, every manager is reluctant to ever fire, families, etc, but remember if you do not control costs and increase productivity and hold the payroll down as low as possible, you may be shutting down all together in a few months costing everyone their job.
Do not hire until you see the whites of the enemies eyes and fire excess employees as soon as a downward trend is recognized, that’s a hallmark of success. call for help 413-549-2966
