Scaling up: the art of timing your recruitment during agency growth

When should I recruit permanent staff?

Start by assessing resourcing needs against the size of the project and the size of the client – is there an opportunity to network within the client? Has the client been transparent about their set-up and scale of challenges, or declared that they are looking for a partner? If you feel positively about all of the above, you may want to consider recruitment.

Sometimes, you hit a purple patch in the development of your agency, and suddenly all the clients come along at once. But how quickly should you increase your permanent headcount?  How do you avoid working harder for less profit? And more importantly, is this growth continual or will it fall off a cliff, leaving me with too many employees? Should you twist or stick?

If you are still a relatively young agency, you may still be in the nurturing phase of client relationships, or maybe your work is on a project-by-project basis rather than a retainer. You may therefore have a limited view of the pipeline,

Do I recruit permanent, or bring in freelance, contractors or fractional experts?

In the first instance, freelancers and contractors are the most viable way to deliver the project in a timely way. They require less time to bring in, less upfront investment, can often start swiftly and there is less commitment. On the other hand, they can burn up the profit in the project due to higher day rates, and often they need a permanent member of the team to ‘buddy’ them, to onboard them, to monitor their work and deliver the right output. They can leave at any time and they ‘own’ the day-to-day relationship. As agency leader, you need to remain close.

With fractional experts, you can get expertise at a reasonable rate ie. 2-3 days p/w, for a prolonged period of time. They act as a permanent team member and are an experienced, safe pair of hands offering professional commitment and build relationships.

But when the workload keeps coming, agency leaders have to consider if it is time to grow, and that’s when you are confronted with a new host of questions, dilemmas and decisions.

It is also important to consider your other clients. Sometimes you scale up for new clients, to find existing clients fall off the plan. Do you have a pipeline for your other clients? Does it look healthy and is that good information? If so, consider employees with view to perm where possible.

However, maybe your client team are reluctant to commit to their projections? If that’s the case, can you meet with the client to create to garner your own view of the potential opportunities? Can you have an honest conversation with the client re future work because you are exploring recruitment? Clients love to know they are using a popular agency, and they may be very excited that you are prepared to invest in their relationship. They love to feel valued.

More importantly, it is worth being ready to recruit BEFORE the need kicks in. Create a talent and recruitment strategy when you have the headspace, because the biggest errors will be made when you are recruiting under duress.

However, client service people are the relationship-holders, controllers of the value and profit and are potential growth creators. But it is harder to see quality of relationship until retrospectively.

To answer this question, you really need to identify your main objective or fear.

I can’t afford agency fees but am worried about recruiting the wrong person.

Successful recruitment requires a strategy, approach and tools, and recruiting the wrong people can be costly and far more time consuming in the long run. If you are entering a growth phase and you will be recruiting several people during the year, it is worth developing a full talent strategy. This involves a people plan, roles & responsibilities, your recruitment process, tools and channels, and having a strong employer brand that makes you a desirable company to join. A Talent Strategist can also coach you on interview techniques to help you identify the right employee.

What if I can’t afford either recruiters or consultants?

There are a number of actions you can take:

• Copy a similar ad on LinkedIn that hits all the right notes, personalise it and copywrite it to convey your tone of voice.

• Involve the team in the recruitment process:
  • posting out the ad on their social media
  • reviewing the applications
  • creating recruitment criteria
  • participating in interviews

What if I get too many or too few responses?

Share the workload across the specific team with the aim of creating a shortlist. Some people know applicants and may have an opinion (for you to decide if biased or not). Sometimes by involving the team, you also arrive at a much more defined role description to you know better your criteria and, therefore, your interview questions.

Consider a 1 day Assessment session*. is an efficient way to identifying the top talent and assessing some of the harder-to-identify qualities – how people perform under pressure, their empathy for each other and team qualities.

I don’t get many responses, and those I do get, aren’t quite right.

There are also several things you can do about this:

• Offer employees an incentive for a successful recruitment
• Review your ad; is it saying the right things?
• Post some exciting company news on social media
• Have you got any negative feedback on Glassdoor? If so, counter this in how you describe yourself.

I keep hearing that with growth comes a drop in profitability, that people are just busier but for less return. Why, and how do I circumvent this?

This is invariably because with more people, comes more communication – more internal stakeholder management, more opinions to negotiate, more decisions to make

• How stretchy are your current systems and tools? Do you need to start investing in digital project management tools?
• Do people like them and find them easy to use?
• Do they do the job you need, or could you use this as a moment to consolidate tools?

If so, are these subscription-based, and do you need to audit new tools on the market to get something more scalable at a better cost per head?

Actions you can do to minimise the risk of drop in profits.

• Review your project workflow to assess if people are aligned on it?
• Have you got good project management tools and systems?
• Do you have a good onboarding system at the outset, and do people have a ‘buddy’ they can ask questions to on an ongoing basis?
• Do you have a pipeline view?
• Is it time to review the full structure of the agency, audit the roles, the direction of the agency and what is needed to future proof?

*There are several references to linked articles such as Talent Strategy and Assessment Session, which I will post soon – watch this space.