How to Hire When You’re About to Scale

Caroline Hines, Director of Product at OneView Healthcare tackled this issue in the third article in this series. Read the article here.

Talent acquisition practicalities

From a talent acquisition perspective, when you scale it’s important to start building your capabilities here too.

“In the early stages, you may have relied heavily on your personal network and referrals, taking the option of a safe bet on someone known to you or to someone you trust,” says David.  

“As you look to deliver scale in terms of hiring you’ll need to branch out and build your capabilities in this area as well.”

“This is true for companies moving from start-up to their first or second scale phase, and for companies moving from 50-100 or 100/500+ employees. Times change and your talent acquisition, retention and culture strategies need to change too.”

So when should you hire perm, contractors or outsource job families? The decision is complex and has many factors. David offers his advice on each.

The Start-up Hiring Strategy

“Generally while building out your start-up the focus is on perm. You want people bought into the vision, happy to roll up their sleeves to make that vision a reality who are committed to the project mid- to long-term. You’re trying to build a family, a culture and do great things together.”

“As your business grows,” says David, “you will most likely try to retain this strategy, keep your family growing and manage your payroll costs in line with funding, cash flow and revenues.”

The Case for Contracting

“Contracting is usually, and incorrectly, seen as an expensive and unnecessary option, only justifiable at large corporate entities” reflects David. “But augmenting your business with contract staff has an important role to play at all stages of growth.”

“Contractors can deliver a burst of new talent to upskill the core team, augment your staffing levels temporarily to manage areas like increased workload, cover a temporary talent gap, meeting deadlines, or handle a block of non-core work like testing, for example.”

The Benefits of Blended Models

“A lot of businesses will use fully outsourced/offshore partners, particularly in the early stages as they look to cost-effectively build viable products to take to market.

“As your business grows you may look to transition the development activities back to your inhouse teams or leave the heavy lifting sitting with your outsourced partner.”

“Consider a blended offshore/onshore model,” recommends David. “Our ODC (offshore dedicated centre) in Vietnam means clients get an onsite presence and account management but the cost benefits of offshore technical resources.”

Recruitment Solution Services

“One of our fastest growing business lines is our Recruitment Solutions service,” says David. “This couples expert consultancy on the best talent acquisition strategies and recruitment processes with a global talent delivery engine, allowing businesses to scale quickly from one phase to another.

Which do you pick?

“Key considerations are maturity and capability,” says David.

“We help companies design and implement a strategy best suited to them. For companies actively scaling it’s usually is a mix of direct hiring and delivery through our teams, but all managed under our overall service umbrella.

“Some companies opt to retain our services and their outsourced talent management function on an ongoing basis, but often we help them through the initial scale phases and gradually replace our team and services with inhouse talent and processes.

“This means the company has the ability to ramp up the campaigns quickly and deliver bulk, niche tech talent and then transition smoothly to their final position when they have processes and internal teams in place.

“We can park our involvement at that point but the customers can easily reactivate the outsourced service if they encounter more bulk hiring phases or need assistance for niche hiring at any point in the future.

The Signs of a Successful Hiring Campaign

To make the most of your hiring drive, maximise your investment, minimise turnover and build a glowing reputation in the marketplace, David recommends the following.