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In my last article I discussed managing employment risks. If employing staff is risky why should you consider it?

There are at least three good reasons to employ staff in a home business.

• Cope with growth, and increasing demand, from customers and clients.
• Increase your security.
• Improve the value of your business and its appeal to buyers.

Cope with growth and increasing demand from
There is one certainty in business; if you don’t supply the demand, someone else will. Once your business reaches the limit of your personal capacity, you have a number of options, but whichever you choose you are increasing your dependency on other people.

A healthy business grows and develops or it dies, slowly, perhaps imperceptibly, but inevitably as it becomes irrelevant to the changing needs of its customers.

You may be very inventive, responsive to shifting demands but eventually everyone becomes locked into their present business model. Failure to recognise change is one of the hidden reasons for failure of business, large or small.

If you introduce the right person into your team that person will contribute more than just work, if you encourage them.

Team members are a great source of innovation if they are encouraged to contribute, and two minds are better than one at spotting opportunities. Many business opportunities are missed because the founder is just too busy to grab them as they present. Getting a team member to act on them is a source of growth, but first you have to have a team member.

Ultimately, your growth prospects are dependent on your willingness to delegate to others, and of course, having competent others to delegate to.

Let us be quite frank about what inhibits this; it’s an ego thing. Few of us are confident about what we think is losing control, so we try to do everything ourselves. We become our own ball and chain.

In 1988 Ichak Adizes examined the “founders trap” in his book 'Corporate Lifecycles: How Organizations Grow and Die and What to Do About It'. What I learned from him and in the 17 years since, is that his lessons apply to small businesses as well.

You don’t need to read the book but if you are motivated you will find it interesting. All you need to do is to recognize the problem, and do something about it. So the message is recruit, delegate and grow.

Yes; it is risky but you can manage the risk, and the returns are good.

Increase your security
You have invested much time, effort and cold hard cash into developing your business to the point where is has become successful and is generating a cash flow on which you increasingly rely.

What happens if you are unable to run your business for any reason? Who will do the work? Who provides your back-up?

Are you relying on friends or relatives to take over from you in an emergency? Most of us do to some extent, but can they really do what you need, particularly if your business is dependent on expertise that takes time to learn.

To ensure that they can, you need to invest real time in ensuring that they are up-to speed on a number of matters.