How to recruit the right staff for your brand

Reaching the stage where you’re considering recruiting staff is a major milestone for your brand. It means you’ve created a product that’s successful and your business is growing. But while this is exciting, it can also be daunting, with multiple challenges to be faced and responsibilities to be managed.

So, how do you decide you’re ready to recruit staff, how do navigate the process, and how can you help to ensure a happy team?

How do you decide when your business is ready to recruit staff?​

This is a difficult decision to make as you want to ensure you’re not taking on staff you don’t need but you also don’t want to wait until it’s too late and you’re struggling to keep meet customer demands.

“This is the chicken and the egg question,” Ella McKay, founder of ethical chocolate brand, Fatso, told FoodNavigator. “Does one wait until the business is generating enough revenue to afford to hire or do you invest in people to support momentum and propel growth to create that revenue?”

“It’s a tough one to decide and is probably different for every business,” agrees Elin Roberts, co-founder of tempeh brand, Better Nature.

However, she highlights three questions you can ask yourself.

• Do you have a clear idea that has had some traction, so you know you’re on the right path and just need the right resources to get it off the ground?
• Have you reached the stage where you don’t have enough time to work on the business as well as in the business?
• Can you afford it?

If the answer to all three is yes, then it’s time to take on staff.

How do you go about recruiting your first employees?​

This process will again be different for different brands, depending on the type of people you want to attract and the recruitment budget available.

But, in the age of the internet, one of the best places to start is undoubtedly social media.

“LinkedIn is your best friend,” says Fatso’s McKay. “You can post out to your network - if you post a message saying you’re hiring, someone in your network will know someone looking - and you can find people who are currently working in other like-minded/similar businesses and reach out to them directly.”

This is a cost-effective method and puts you in complete control of the recruitment process, when budgets are tight. It will also give you time to develop an understanding of the type of employees you’re looking for to ensure a good culture fit. However, this can be time consuming so, if you have the available budget, you may want to consider investing in assistance from a recruitment firm.

“We’ve decided to invest a bit more and work with a recruitment firm next time,” says McKay. “Time is money, and we can’t afford to spend a large proportion of time trawling LinkedIn and reviewing hundreds of applications and keep the business going.”

But that decision is, in itself, important as you need to find the right recruitment firm that will understand your brand and the type of individual you’re looking for.

“Choosing the right partner is really important,” says McKay. “You need a firm that really gets your business, where you’re at, the kind of person you are and therefore who will compliment you. We work with an agency who specialise in challenger brand recruitment and as such they understood what we were about from the off. They also charge lower fees than the rest of the market as they appreciate that businesses like ours are generally smaller, with tighter budgets.”

But regardless of how you go about the recruitment process, you need to know what you're looking for in a candidate. So, how do you decide who is the right fit for your brand?

How to find the right person for your brand?​

So, you’ve decided you’re ready to recruit and you know how you’re going to go about it, but how do you know who is the right person for your business and your brand?

“There are some key questions to ask yourself when dealing with potential candidates,” says Camilla Barnard, founder of plant-based milk brand, Rude Health.

• Can they do what you can’t? You want people with new ideas that will help to challenge and grow your brand.
• Do they think differently? It’s comfortable to hire people who think the same way as you do, but that won’t necessarily lead to the best decisions.
• Will you get along with this person? Company culture is of huge importance to both you and your employees.

And communication is key. As you know, start-ups operate differently to big multinationals, so making sure potential recruits are aware of what working for a small business will look like is essential.

“You’re asking someone to come in and help build your business from the ground up,” says Fatso’s McKay. “Regardless of what level you’re hiring, when you’re a tiny team of two or three, you’re all in it together. So, you need someone that can truly embrace the start-up life. A CV, colourful with impressive big corporate experience, working on sexy brands might not, in reality, be what you need.”

And making sure they have the right attitude is key. When it comes to start-ups, everyone needs to be ready and willing to get stuck in.

“When I’m interviewing people, the number one thing I look for is the aptitude for hustle,” says McKay. “Do they have the instincts and initiative and drive forward and to do whatever it takes to get the job done. No functional support to help with admin, or big budgets here!”

How to set the salary​

Employee salaries will become one of your biggest overheads, so setting the right level is important. The best way to go about this is by looking to see what other businesses are paying for the same or similar roles and experience level.

“We did a very basic version of benchmarking,” says Rude Health’s Barnard. “We also asked recruiters for advice.”

And bear in mind that potential applicants will be looking at the salary offered as a factor in their decision to apply, so you don’t want to set it too low as you risk deterring great candidates. But equally, if you set it too high then you risk it becoming an unaffordable cost for the business.

“It’s a balance between being competitive in a very competitive market and knowing what your limit is and what the business can justify,” says Fatso’s McKay. “People interested in our roles I hope can appreciate that we simply can't compete with the bigger corporate players or businesses.”

But you can help to put yourself ahead by selling the potential of the business and what the candidate’s role could be as they progress in their role.

“We always try to offer a fair salary based on the market, taking into account the persons experience and expectations, and then reassure them that if we succeed together, we will recognise and reward them accordingly,” says McKay. “It’s about coming on the journey, and if you help us win, you will in turn win too.”

You could also consider substituting the salary difference, to other brands, with additional benefits.

“We’ve created a Career Progression Framework, which shows what people should be paid at each role, across the business,” says Better Nature’s Roberts. “We benchmarked this on industry standards, and where we can’t compete, we offer share options to make up two times the difference.”

However, this approach should be carefully considered, as you’d be trusting people with a share of your business, which will grow in value as the company grows.

How to manage your staff​

Once you’ve found the right person for the role and they’ve signed the employment contract​, you’re then in charge of managing them. This can be complicated, especially if you're doing it for the first time, but there are certain things it’s important to remember.

The first of these being that you must maintain a professional relationship even when it’s tempting to behave as friends or family.

“They’re employees, not family,” says Better Nature’s Roberts. “I think early employees are especially susceptible to being treated like an extension of the founding team. Expectations are put on them that just aren’t appropriate for employees, such as caring and sacrificing, just as much as the founders. This is incredibly unfair and leads to a very unhealthy work environment that can’t be maintained as you grow.”

And establishing a firm structure is beneficial for both sides. 

“The better you set them up, the better they’ll do,” says Roberts. “If you provide them with no structure, strategy, KPIs, check-ins etc. then it’s going to be very hard for them to do well. It’s so important to set very clear expectations and ensure they have the resources and support to meet these. Setting these up from the get-go will make it so much easier as you grow.”

Entering into the world of recruitment and management is a big step for you and your business, but it comes with huge benefits and is an exciting step in the growth of your brand.

Good luck!