3: Human Resources

Skills required for my business:

1. Financial Skills- It is essential that this skill is in the business. Not having any financial skills can be harmful for the business. A basic or intermediate level of this skill can be helpful. Financial skills include managing budgets, costs, cash flow, break even charts etc. Having this skill will give me an understanding how to work with my finances and to apply it to the business. These skills are usually needed at an advance level through using a qualified accountant.

2. Human Resources Skills- It is vital that this skill is in the business. This is because I won’t be able to stay in the business due to circumstances. E.g. Illness or appointments to attend. Therefore, recruiting the right person is critical, which would benefit me in the end. Having this skill will also give me knowledge to choose the exact candidate.

3. Conceptual Skills- This skill would enable me to make the right decision at the correct time. Recognise new ideas and opportunities are important because this would help me to contribute well.

4. Social networking skills- To communicate with a
local community is a vital aspect. Networking socially with my local people can show that I’m conscious towards the local business and not just business focused. Networking socially can be to associate with different groups, such as charities or the community of hairdressing. This will benefit me because I will gain new ideas which I can apply to my business. Therefore, having this skill will be very useful.

5. Hairdressing Skills- Having this skill is the most important aspect because my business is depending on this skill. A qualification is not always required; however having one would have been beneficial.

6. Recording and checking performance of business- This will make the business more powerful and will direct it towards the right path. I will be setting SMART targets which will enable me to focus more on my business. In addition I will be looking back on my performance frequently in order to see if I am heading towards the right direction. Studying my performance means looking at the number of customers I received, how many were repeating customers, what service is the most popular one, looking at my costs, prices of materials etc. This will make me more fascinated about my business.
Skills Audit

This is a skills audit of some of the skills I currently have and at what level. This will give me an insight as a person if I am enriched person with loads of skills or not.

Skills Level

Communication- Advance
Team working - Intermediate
Customer service - Intermediate
Multilingual - Intermediate
Creativity - Basic
Negotiation - Intermediate
IT - Basic
Human resource skill - Basic

Skills gap and development

I will be looking at skills I haven’t got and how I can improve my existing skills. Identifying these gaps will enable to contribute better towards my business. Therefore, it’s important that I find the correct solution to enhance my existing skills. In order to be specific I will classify them in short and long term.

Short term

The skills mentioned in this are very vital to me and need to be obtained as soon possible. They are well demanded and need to be gained in the right way. Skills needed and improved will be listed underneath:

• Marketing skills- I haven’t got good marketing skill and not sure what is the most suitable method for me to promote my business except for leaflets. Therefore, I will be hiring a marketing agency which wills advice me the best way to promote my business effectively. A positive aspect would be that someone else would be doing it for me. Therefore, I can keep my focus on the business. Another positive aspect is that I will be targeting the correct people and attract a larger market. A drawback of hiring a marketing agency is that they can be very expensive. They will be charging me three times as much, which would raise my costs. It is important that I promote myself well in the first two years. This is because I would be able to obtain a place in the market and will also be recognised by people easily.

• IT skills- This is well needed to record details on excel and to provide a good service through music etc. I will have to advance this skill as soon as possible. This is because important data need to be collated; therefore this skill is vital for me. In order to advance this skill I can attend weekly computer classes which is a form of training. Attending frequent computer classes will enable me to enhance my IT skills and imply them into my business. A negative aspect is that it is time consuming. In addition, I may have to close early or rely on someone else to run the business. The prices are fairly cheap to attend a class and it would be useful in the future as well.

Long term

These are skills that I will really need in long term. They are listed bellow:

• Creativity skills- This is skill will enable me to satisfy my consumer well, which I need to improve. I need to be creative in order to fulfil all my customers’ needs and wants. I am sure that I will be getting all types of customers; therefore it is important that I’m creative and can adapt new styles well. I can do this also through a course at Hayes Community Campus. It’s a 10 weeks course and I can choose my own subject. This would benefit me and give me knowledge about the new styles. Additionally, the classes will prepare me to fulfil the needs of my consumers. However, a disadvantage of taking classes is that there are limited classes provided and there are other classes you need to attend if you want to carry on. This can be very expensive. I can also get a daily hairdressing magazine which would help me to recognise new styles in the market.

• Human resources skill- I will need to advance this skill. This is because I will need to know how to recruit the right person for the job. Employing the wrong person would affect me and my business in the long term. Therefore hiring the right person would help me when I’m ill or can’t make it to work. The right person is a person whose honest, reliable, good skills, treats consumers well and delivers a good service at all time even in not my presence. Not selecting the right candidate can’t affect my business tremendously; as a result I need to be cautious when choosing. I can identify the right person through using Belbin’s team role. I will hire a Co-ordinator who is mature, confident, delegates well, clarifies goal and is a chairperson. This would benefit me because then I have got someone to rely on under my absence. In addition, I know that this person would bring a positive outcome when his running my shop when I’m not there. A disadvantage could be that he can be very controlling and forget that I am the owner. He may start treating loyal staff however he wants and they may leave. Therefore, there is also a bad side to this as well, which can set an impact on me.