Hire the best people to work for your business while creating a suitable environment

Hire the best people to work for your business while creating a suitable environment

I would say the key to success for a startup, or any other company for that matter is its human resources and the working environment that you have created for them. So, who should we hire and what qualifications should we look for? What is the definition of a good workplace, and what are its criteria? How can we achieve that? When you are starting your own business, these are essential questions that you should have the answer to them.

Find the most suitable people for your requirements

How to find the best people and how to treat them is an essential factor. Below is the method that we think is working.

1) Working with young talents: We work with young talents. Find the ones who are responsible, smart and hardworking. They will learn the rest if you are patient enough. We invest a lot in training and recruitment, but it is worth it.

2) Periodic staff/management review: Our periodic staff/management review is the key to our progress. It is challenging, but most of our company and its staff progress are due to the feedback given during these reviews.

3) It is okay to make mistakes. We have created a culture where making a mistake is okay and is everybody's right. It is repeating the same mistake over and over that is not okay. So, people talk openly about their mistakes with each other. This improves the performance of our teams.

4) Inspire team members to help each other In our teams, people are promoted when they enable other team members to do their job well. This is very hard to notice and measure, though. For which Trello helps a lot. It is a transparent platform and allows management to notice people who are constantly and proactively assisting others to do their jobs to the best of their capacity.

5) Challenge the members of your team We understand people get bored at their job and want to develop new skills after a while. So, even though it costs our small startup a great deal to transfer people between different responsibilities and constantly train them, we do it, and it is worth it. It keeps people happy and motivated and improves productivity to a noticeable amount. Management tries not to allow anyone to get bored, and when they do, they let management know to switch their position as they are asked to do so. I have seen it elsewhere, and our experience has been successful trying it so far.

Creating the best working environment for you and your staff

If you have found the appropriate people to work with, creating a suitable environment for them to work and communicate is the crucial next step. you have to create a workspace and a workflow that will maximize the efficiency of your company:

1) Find the right setting early on, we found out that working remotely was the best option for us; it allowed people to have flexible hours, work from the comfort of their homes or anywhere they desired. It would give them a sense of freedom in an organized way and would have a positive impact on their mental health and efficiency. It is not for everyone though. Many can not create a proper home office and focus at home. Some like the human interaction in the office. So you need to be very transparent about the challenges of working from home long, your requirements (e.g. flexible but consistent hours) during the interviews and training period.

2) Set flexible hours the freedom to work when it is best convenient for each individual is an option that can affect the efficiency of your staff on a large scale.

3) Find a way to communicate effectively creating a system that will be clear and efficient for communication is vital. We use Trello for assigning tasks to members and having conversations. When there is a need, a meeting will be scheduled. We also have a TimeTree calendar that allows the members of the same team to be able to see the working hours of their teammates so they won't contact each other out of one another's working hours.

4) Realize the strengths and weaknesses of every individual assigning tasks to members of the team is a crucial part of creating a pleasant working atmosphere. Giving tasks to someone that you know is not most suitable for the job, creates a negative impact on them as it is likely to cause a failure. During our periodic reviews, it is expected from everyone to talk about their own and their supervisors strong and weak suits openly. Our focus is not on the weakness but the strength. This way everyone has been moved to where he/she fits best and knows their supervisor opinion about themselves. Assisting our young talent to build upon their strength, while performing their tasks, give them a sense of achievement and a boost in morale which all leads to a more happy and efficient working experience.

5) Last but not least, give yourself as the founder/manager the same luxury of being allowed to make mistakes. We do our best to achieve the above but it is not always 100%, we have made and will keep making mistakes. Our experience shows that as long as we are not trying to justify our own mistakes, we are forgiven.