Your employees are the best thing about your business. Your product might be one of a kind, your service phenomenal, your marketing flawless – he’ll, you could be the most charming person in the world, but it’s your staff who are going to get your business booming.

You can’t expect to triumph in your industry without having a strong supporting team; you might be the face and head honcho of your business, but there are so many people out there who are going to be some of the biggest assets your company could have.

And there will be some who are terrible, and you have to boot out – but that’s all part of being the boss. To avoid the bad apples, you just need to find the best candidates, hire them, retain them, and give them some amazing benefits and bonuses.

Sounds easy enough, right?

Finding The Right Staff

Finding the right people to interview can be a lot simpler, and a lot more complicated, than sticking an add up on Craig’s List. You might find some brilliant candidates this way, but you will be sifting through masses of not-so-great people just to find them. You want the best of the best, even if that means poaching from competitors.

The people who are serious about the role you’re offering will be signed up on sites like LinkedIn and with agencies who deal with your industry and that particular role – like HR technology advisors do. You don’t want to be picking the one diamond out of the masses of rocks.

You want to be agonizing over which diamond is THE diamond – the one with more experience or the one with more creative potential?

Hiring Staff

The hiring process can be arduous, but it is such a vital part of gaining a new employee. Before you start you need to get the details sorted; your question order, the key points about the role and your company you’ll be aiming to hit, and the parts you are willing to negotiate on.

When advertising you will have put forward a base salary and basic benefits for the role, but you should always give yourself some wiggle room when it comes to hiring the right person. You might find that someone has less experience than you would like and so can happily lower the salary a little, or you might find that someone has been offered more money at a competing company and so need to match or raise that amount.

Hiring someone is a bit like poker – you need to know when to raise, when to fold and when to call someone’s bluff. It’s a game that takes a while to perfect, so don’t worry if you don’t get the deal you want on the first 50 goes.

Keeping Your Staff

Now that you have hired the perfect employee – you want to make sure that you keep them. One way of doing that is through the benefits package you offer – benefits differ from each company, and it’s usually catered to what that company can afford.

But there are things that you should think about adding on as extras for those who need it, like child care help, a cycle to work scheme or incentives to carpool. As well as a good list of benefits, you can keep your employees by treating them fairly.

When it comes to sick days, time off to look after children when childcare falls through, or late to work for a valid reason. An understanding boss is going to gain people’s loyalty more than one who penalizes each little thing. If your employees are loyal to you, you are much more likely to keep them if they are offered another job that might be a little closer to home, or pay a little bit more.