Growing a team when you're working solo
Gary, solo business owner, working with Sonia during our work placement programme
While many small businesses are sadly suffering from the impacts of the pandemic, and having to let people go or stop trading entirely, we’ve also noticed that there’s a wealth of freelancers, solo entrepreneurs and micro-businesses who are finding they are actually gaining more work. Whether it’s the freelance learning designer who’s picked up a load more clients interested in moving their courses online, the entrepreneur who thought their business was just a side hustle until they were suddenly made redundant, or the micro-business that were struggling to sell their remote collaboration tool to office-based corporates until suddenly everyone needed to host online meetings. If you’re finding yourself in the great position of having more work than you can handle on your own it’s likely you’ve considered employing someone or outsourcing some of your work to others.
Finding yourself in a situation where you might need to grow your team can be both daunting and exciting. Over the course of this week we’ll be sharing key tips for growing your team and empowering them to do good work. We won’t just be talking about situations where you might employ someone as a member of staff, we also believe that it’s just as important to consider all of this stuff when you’re partnering with others or hiring someone on a freelance or contract basis.
In these posts we’ll be focussing on what we know most about: people, culture and collaboration. There’s plenty of accountants, lawyers and business advisers out there who can help you out with the financials and practicalities (we’ll direct you to a few at the end of the week). But for now we want to help you explore what growing your team might mean for you by discussing the following topics:
Alongside each post we invite conversations in the comments section or over on our Collaborative Future Slack group which is freely accessible to Collaborators and Affiliates on our program.
We believe that people starting out on their journey of employing others have huge power to change the system and create working relationships in which everyone can thrive. This is why our work placement program is specifically designed for solo entrepreneurs and small businesses, not only do we want to provide you with access to diverse talent, we also want to provide you with a learning experience that will empower you to build a better future.