You've completed your planning and determined that you'll need extra help. So how do you guarantee that you get the greatest candidate through your door?

All commerce owners need to recognize the significance of human resource (HR) planning. HR preparation is not a fancy word for large organizations to implement. Even small businesses need to guarantee that their HR is in order to function properly. Failing to administer your HR correctly could result in a lack of manpower when you need it or too many manpower when you don't need them and therefore incurring needless cost.

So, what is HR development? Marketing has its 4Ps while HR has 6Rs. It is ensuring that you have the correct staff in the accurate numbers, doing the precise job, at the exact time and at the correct place.

There are a number of options to manage momentary shortages in manpower. Firstly, you can hire part-time workers. They are a good option especially when you have a lot of children under half-day care. You can also think about engaging temporary employment agencies. This option is more suitable for less critical positions such as teacher assistants rather than the caregiver. The next option is to have your staff work longer hours and pay them overtime for it.

For lasting manpower shortages, you'll need a recruitment campaign to hire. You can do this whether via advertisement, referral or hire an employment agency to help you with it.

There are several factors to take into thought to ensure that you hire the right person. You need to look in depth into several factors:

- What will be the candidate's responsibilities and tasks. Try to be as exact as possible on the job duties that is required of the applicant. This information will come in useful when drawing up the advertisement.

- Do you need the candidate to be proficient in any tools or equipment such as the computer or musical instrument?

- What's the operational environment of the candidate? E.g. What are the working hours? Will the candidate be on shift? Where is the applicant supposed to be stationed, especially if you have more than one outlet)? How many children does the daycare centre care for? What are the age groups?

- What will be his/her working relationship with fellow colleagues. Who will the candidate be reporting to? Will there be any staff that he/she will be required to supervise?

- What are the job requirements?

- What are the qualities that the candidate should possess? Do you want the candidate to be able to handle children and be patient with children?

- Do you need the candidate to possess prior experience in childcare?

- What are the credentials you would like them to possess? Do they need to possess a Diploma or Certificate in Early Childhood? Do you need the applicant to have first aid training?

Doing the job right
Finally, you need to sort out what you'll need to do to draw candidates of the above qualities to apply for the situation and execute their job well.

- You need to decide what are the benefits you will be offering to the candidate; e.g. annual leave, insurance, subsidy (if they put their child at your daycare centre), etc.

For more: How to start a daycare center