Assignment: Staffing Your New Business

Small business owners often have to assume more than one role when starting their businesses. In a sense, a small business owner has to be a "jack of all trades", living up to the meaning of the figure of speech, where one is versatile at many tasks. Likewise, employees of a small business start-up, may be faced with the same situation.

For this Assignment, refer to Chapter 19, "Human Resource Management: Small Business Considerations" in your Entrepreneurial Small Businesstextbook. Hiring and developing employees can be challenging for owners and managers of a small business venture, especially when these employees may be working in two or more operational areas.

For example, one employee may be responsible for both marketing and sales, while another employee may be responsible for information technology management and office administration.

Imagine you are the owner of a small business venture, and are ready to hire your employees. Initially, the employees you hire will have to assume more than one role.

In your 2- to 3-page paper, be sure to address the following:

What roles would need to be filled for the business? Which roles might best be combined?

What skills/attributes would you look for when recruiting employees?

How would you assess the strengths and skills of each employee in order to assign the specific roles and responsibilities?

Should you set up specific time allocations/expectations for each employee (e.g. an employee is responsible for marketing 60% of the time, and sales the remaining 40%)? If so, how would you monitor the percentages?

What do you think are the advantages of using this approach in this setting? Disadvantages?