It always takes time to trust new people you come into contact with in any walk of life. Particularly in the business world where you are trusting new people you may have only met once or twice during a recruitment process with your sensitive information. Most people are honest and will want to do the best thing by their employer, but how do you protect yourself from the few that may not appear to be what they seem?
Here’s my top tips:-
· Consider what you put in the employment contract. If you are going to be exposing this new person to trade secrets or they will be inventing something that you want to make sure belongs to you and not them you need a solid clause in your contract to reflect this.
· You also need clauses to prevent people from working for a competitor, or in a consultancy environment poaching your clients and working directly for them.
· Consider what risks to your business you can legitimately outsource to an external provider and what the financial investment will return in terms of time, and peace of mind knowing you have experts looking out for you so you don’t have to be an expert in everything yourself. I know running my own business that not only do I need to know about HR, but also Finance, IT, Marketing, Sales, Data Protection. The list goes on.
When you’ve got the right people working for you, either as external consultants or direct employees then it will really enhance your business. It means you can focus on finding that new revenue stream, or getting those new clients rather than having to try and worry about everything. Just remember that trust works both ways though and your best people you want to keep will demand and expect this. If you want to retain good people they will feel more loyal to you knowing that you trust them, their views are valid and they’re not micromanaged.