Hiring the right people means constantly fighting the law of diminishing returns. Some workers are the right fit without needing any special attention. These are the unicorns, and will always be coveted by smart companies. In order to find these rare employees, you have to let go of the ones that aren’t working out.
Retention Rate
If your retention rate is low, then take a close look at your staff. Has your workplace been a revolving door for the past few months? When a company has issues keeping workers, it becomes harder to lure in quality talent. When a workplace can’t meet the needs of its employees, they tend to leave for better opportunities.
Business Goals
It takes time to adapt employees to the company’s business goals. Getting everyone on the right track isn’t a one-day job. Due to the time constraints of everyday operations, an overabundance of employees is problematic for visionary success. Your resources are limited, so business goals suffer when too many employees are on a different path.
Drained Resources
An incomplete work environment is tolerable if there is comradery and loyalty among the ranks. But even with your strongest workers bonding, they are limited to whatever resources are available. Those resources become scarce when too many workers are employed. Tasks that would take one hour can take up to an entire day.
Employees Don’t Mesh
Sometimes employees just don’t get along with one another. Productivity halts when personal feelings get in the way of doing good work. When this happens, you’ll notice groups with a hive mind being created in the workplace. It is an invisible divider that provides workers with a ‘safe space’ to be themselves. The problem with this groups is that they often come at the expense of others. Too many employees in a company guarantees that these groups will form on their own to disrupt workflow.
Undefined Roles
Every position in a company should be clearly defined. This sets up rank, responsibility and possible promotion paths. When too many employees share the same roles, it has the opposite effect of efficiency. Structure and uniformity with roles helps employees understand their place in a company. Without this, work assigned tasks have no meaning. A company loses a valuable employee the moment that individual loses pride in their work.
Employee Satisfaction
How satisfied are your employees? There is are differences in satisfaction when it comes to loyalty and tolerance. If most of your employees are tolerable, then take a long look at your roster. What is preventing them from being loyal? And how valuable are the employees that just tolerate their positions?
Instead of investing in large employee numbers, invest in targeted training. You get the same amount of work done without straining office relationships. Training saves money, and can also solidify specific work roles.
Wrap Up
Being overstaffed is a problem that can quickly ruin a work environment. It’s never too late to make a correction, and it all starts by admitting that there’s a problem. Great workers need attention, so put them in a position to stand out.
