Hiring, Firing and Everything in Between

One of the biggest challenges faced by an equipment rental business owner is personnel. Having good people in your shop has a positive impact on every facet of your operation. With properly qualified employees, your job quality, efficiency and customer service will all be strengthened. On the other hand, even one or two weak links in your personnel chain can have a detrimental effect on your entire business.

Of course, the process of maintaining an employment base of skilled, well-adjusted, dedicated employees begins with the hiring process. But you also must maintain an effective overall personnel plan to hire and keep good employees. Additionally, you need an effective system to weed out the people who don't fit in due to deficiencies in job skills, commitment or interpersonal interaction.

Hiring the right people for business

As your business grows, so does your employment base. As this occurs, it becomes increasingly important to hire good people into your operation. Of course, this is easier said than done. While you aren't likely to succeed 100 percent of the time in finding the right employees for your equipment rental business, you will increase your chances by following a well thought out and deliberate approach to each hiring situation. There are several steps you should follow to maximize your chances of finding a good employee each time a job opening arises.

Analyze the job requirements. Before you set out to fill a certain position, make sure you know exactly what the job will entail.

One good way to do this is to write out a detailed job description for the position. If you need a new office manager, write out a description of the key duties (i.e. paying supplier bills, sending out invoices, supervising office staff, etc.); the educational background and skills necessary (i.e. 80 words per minute typing, experience with word processing and spreadsheets on a PC, high school degree, etc.); and the anticipated salary range (i.e. $20,000–$30,000). If you don't specify these job requirements, then you might just wind up with the right person for the wrong job.

Promote from within versus hiring outside. Depending upon the job opening you have, you might want to consider promoting from within rather than going to the outside job market. Promoting from within, or "growing your own" employees, has a couple of key advantages. First, someone who is in tune to your way of doing business won't have to be oriented to your operating practices. Second, it's good for overall employee morale to promote from within, because it sends a message to all of your employees that if they work hard and do a good job, they will be given the opportunity to advance in their careers.

There are also a couple of key advantages to hiring outside of your business. First, hiring from the job market allows you to fill a position with an employee who has direct experience in that particular position. If you take an existing employee from your shop and promote him to a management position, you might have to invest significant training time and dollars to bring him/her up to speed. Hiring someone from outside with experience might be more desirable for that reason. Second, someone from another small equipment rental business brings fresh ideas, one or two of which might be worth adopting to improve your operation.

Where do you get candidates? There are three basic methods that can be used to recruit potential applicants for a new job — newspaper ads, employment agencies and word-of-mouth. Some business owners use newspaper ads primarily while others prefer employment agencies. Newspaper ads can be very effective and are far less costly than an employment agency; however, you might be missing good potential applicants who haven't read the paper.