Hire when the numbers say so
Knowing how many more clients the team could take on told the leaders when to start recruiting.
The situation
A service company with about $3M in revenue and 30+ employees had fully embraced EOS®. Operations were getting better. Revenue still fell short for months. In the past, the leadership team had hired early, on gut feel and the impressions of a few team members. Hiring early adds payroll before the work is there. Hiring late can mean turning away clients the team can't serve.
The measure
Open capacity = how many more clients the team can take on before the company needs another hire.
A few busy people can make the whole company feel full. Open capacity looks across everyone, so the team sees the real room it has and how fast it's filling.
What the team saw
Illustrative chart, not the client's data. The shaded band is the time it takes to recruit and hire. When open capacity reaches it, recruiting starts.
The decision it changed
Seeing open capacity across the company showed the leadership team when to start recruiting: early enough to cover the time it takes to hire, and not before. Hiring stopped being a gut call.
How we build this at Next Sage Group
We combine your team, how many clients each role can serve, and your current client counts, then project when capacity runs out so recruiting starts on time.
From Bruce's work before Next Sage Group. Client details are withheld.
Two years later, the company is doing great.