With business picking up again (albeit slowly), you may be thinking about hiring a new employee. Having hired many folks over the years, I’ve learned that some skills cannot be taught. I’m not the only one who thinks this way:

• An article in the papers recently stated that Walmart was actively seeking out military officers returning from Iraq to join their management training program. Their logic was simple – if someone has already proven themselves to be a leader, WallMart can teach them retail.
• I have a friend who is a florist, and she carries business cards with her all the time. Whenever she gets exceptional service – for example, a waitress in a restaurant – she gives them a card and offers them a job. Her logic is also simple – you can teach retail, but you cannot teach customer service.

Every new employee in your studio will start out full of enthusiasm, especially if they are interested in photography. But over time enthusiasm dies if you haven’t matched the employee’s skills with the job. For example,

• Hiring a photography student, then have them answer the phone
• Hiring a bookkeeper to work with clients
• Hiring a graphic designer and taking them on photo shoots

It seems illogical to hire someone with one skill, then ask them to do something else. Yet as managers, we do it every day. As business owners we are expected to wear several hats, so we assume employees should too. Sure, they might learn how to do other jobs, but over time their enthusiasm will die, and your business will suffer.

If you’re filling a new position, hire someone with great skills to do it either full-time or part-time, or outsource it. Otherwise, you’ll just end up with an average employee.

Update:

The Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) jobs bill recently signed into law is designed specifically for companies like photographic studios. It can save you as much as $7,621 in 2010 and 2011 for each qualified employee. Read about it at Bloomberg.com

Tags: business

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010 at 3:57 pm and is filed under business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.