The Benefits of Hiring an Entry Level Employee

I know a lot of business owners who are getting by with a very lean staff team. Often they skip hiring the entry level position on the team and instead hire mid to senior staff and keep the team lean. These senior staff may be further along in their career and are more often than not able to hit the ground running, and they also come at a higher salary. Granted, they typically need very little supervision and are able to achieve results relatively quickly but I often wonder if the employer isn’t overpaying for some of the tasks that senior staff get pulled into. Do the senior staff in your office ever get distracted by focusing on the wrong things that aren’t within their skill set?

This makes me wonder if organizations aren’t missing out by going lean and not having an entry level person on their team as well.

“Entry-level employees can bring a lot of value to an organization when given the right opportunity.”

However, they are often skipped because of the fear that they will take too much time to train and will be a drain on the supervisor by adding to their workload.

These are valid concerns however here are reasons why entry level hires are a great idea!

1. They ask good questions. A new person to the organization asks “why” a lot and this makes everyone stop and think, and that is good. This question is often skipped by those who have been in the workplace for a long time because they make their own assumptions about why instead of asking the question.
2. They focus the work on the right person. An entry level person can learn a lot by doing the research on a project, by writing draft reports, or by tabulating statistics…they can do the foundational work before handing it off to someone to take it the last 20%. They will learn a lot and your senior staff member can focus their time on the things that truly need their knowledge and expertise.
3. They are a less expensive option to getting work done. New employees are excellent at documenting your processes and your systems and they are paid at a rate that is appropriate for the task of documentation. You aren’t overpaying and you are getting huge value from getting those pesky processes written down.
4. It is good for you to mentor. New employees in a career are like sponges and they want to listen and learn. As someone who is more experienced in a field, being a mentor can help you stay fresh, can bring about innovation and can help spread your corporate memory around instead of staying in your head all the time.
5. They have new ideas. Someone who is new to an industry and eager to show what they know can often bring about new innovation, technology or processes to your organization that you may not see from others who have been in one place for a long time.
6. They have great energy. New employees are enthusiastic and let’s face it, haven’t had time to become cynical and jaded. Some organizations could really benefit from this new, positive energy.

So, yes, they may take time and effort but new entrants into a field and into your organization can bring a lot of benefits as well. You may even learn a thing or two from them!

Your Engaged Assignment: Take a look around. Are the right people doing the right work or do you have people doing work that could easily be done by someone with less experience? Maybe you have room in your organization for an entry level position to be created?