Being an entrepreneur is not easy. There is a lot you need to know, a lot of adaptation, and a lot to learn. However, life is easy when you know that you can depend on #1 to “help you out.” The problem is when other people get into the picture. If you hire one other person, you can’t afford an HR department to replace them when they quit or slack off. You are dependent on that one person. In real life, that other person will not be as dedicated as you are to your baby (your business) even if they are an official partner. If that other person disappears, you will be left doing two people’s work yourself while you have yet a third job which is looking for a replacement. It is feast or famine! When you do everything yourself, you can be very efficient and reliable. But, when you have two, three or more people helping you (or letting you down) things are not as steady.
Large companies can have a hiring department. The people hiring can take analytics and weed people out very efficiently. Management can see how the track record of the new employees turns out to be. There can be twenty out o a hundred workers who are new and there just to be evaluated. If they do a good job, they’ll get promoted to a higher level, otherwise they’ll get canned. Companies with a hundred employees are in control. Companies with five employees are at the mercy of the employees.
One alternative is to have many part-timers. That way if someone quits, you only lose half an employee. Also, if you hire extra help, instead of paying for an entire extra person, you only need half a person which will only cost you 1 arm and 1 leg! Additionally, many employees at smaller businesses need to be able to multi-task since there isn’t that much of any particular type of task to do. Hiring part-timers allows you to have more individuals helping you who are highly specialized in what they are doing.
A good employee strategy model is critical. Rather than having all of your staff being at a particular level, it is important to have people who are very seasoned, and some people who are working their way up the ropes so to speak. That way if your seasoned folks quit, you will have someone to replace them with. Keep in mind that it isn’t always so easy to hire experienced people, so if you manufacture them yourself by giving them training and experience, you might get to keep them.
The bottom line is that it doesn’t matter exactly how many employees your operation has. It is how efficiently you hire, fire, train and manage them. It is often easier in an economy of scale, but a smart small company with experience and a philosophical mind or set of minds will figure out how to be efficient at leadership as well. So, good luck!