Using words like “power” or “success” to describe a company can sometimes make it easy to imagine a cutthroat environment. However, a competitive workplace shouldn’t run on employees’ fear or feel like a real-life Hunger Games. A powerful and successful company operates best and with the most longevity when employees work with a team mentality, each filling a needed role and fulfilling long-term goals. Here’s what you can do to make sure your team is as strong as it can possibly be for your company. 1. Focus on roles. A thorough selection process for picking your team members has greater long-term benefits, even if this means you spend more time recruiting than you’d like to. Hiring someone just to have bodies in the room can harm your team. Companies that do this wind up becoming a revolving door, whether it’s because prospective employees see the role as a temporary landing pad and are less interested in learning, or because you decide later on that they aren’t the right fit. This winds up costing you more money in the long run. Investing your time and money in people who truly specialize in the role your company needs will have immense payoffs later.…

If you run a startup or a small- to mid-size company, you probably can’t justify hiring a full-time chief financial officer.  But, you do need some level of financial help from an expert, someone who can cast a trained eye on your cash flow, margins, key performance indicators, and overall profit picture while you concentrate on your team and your strategies for growth. If you run a midsize business, you probably have a CFO. But what happens when you have to navigate a period of financial disruption and that CFO isn’t the right person to see you through it? Or your CFO leaves abruptly in the middle of a critical time? In both cases, you need a CFO, just not a full-time one, so the question is, when should you hire an interim (temporary) CFO, or a fractional (part-time) one? First, let’s be clear on the difference. Interim CFO vs. Part-time CFO: What’s the difference? Interim CFOs are finance experts who come in, usually on a full-time basis, typically for one to three months, to help steer a company through a financial crisis, an operations change, preparation for a sale, or the gap between one CFO’s departure and the hiring…

Development teams come in all shapes and sizes. From the one-man shop to large-scale operations, you all share one common goal: to raise as much funding as possible so that you can expand the reach of your organization. In order to do that, many organizations get to the point where they have to grow their development teams. In an industry that places a heavy emphasis on lean staffing and efficiency, however, the decision to expand the team is not an easy one to make. Here are four basic steps that can help you determine when to expand and how to prepare for new development team members. Step 1: Assess the State of Your Workload When you feel frustrated and overwhelmed by your to-do list it’s easy to picture how a new team member would be helpful. However, bringing on new people isn’t always the best solution. Elizabeth Eyre and the Mind Tools Team stress it’s just as vital to understand when not to hire as when to hire. Here are some of the things they say you should consider when you assess the hiring needs of your organization: Does your extra workload have anything to do with seasonality, one-time projects, or the temporary absence of a…

Associations have shown overall growth in staffing this year, and have plans for further growth in 2019. This growth is accompanied by salary increases, heightened emphasis on performance in setting salaries, and plans for program expansion and membership development, as reported in PNP’s  newest Association Salaries and Staffing Trends report. As Associations grow and either replace or add talent to their team, they are finding that competition for talent is fierce. Associations overwhelmingly see the transformations in the marketplace for talented staff affecting their ability to replace departing leaders or to bring on talent that will fill leadership roles in the future. A startling 79% of respondents to PNP’s survey noted that they are concerned about the scarcity of new talent to hire. How organizations approach diversity in hiring, Millennials’ mobility, and staff engagement have become critical factors to recruitment, hiring and retention. Salary still remains the single most important attractor of talent, followed by additional benefits, flexible work schedules, and support for training and professional development. 4 Tips to Help You Recruit and Retain Top Talent Prioritize, build and reinforce a team culture of engagement and ownership Invest in coaching and training and offer clear opportunities for professional growth…