A Team Capacity Check Will Save You Thousands
As small businesses grow and add to their team, it’s not uncommon for the leaders to fall out of touch with their team. Focusing on the growth of a business can distract from the internal people component. Sometimes growth happens so quickly that the immediate thought is to continue hiring more team members.
To avoid being out of touch with your team, or costly hires that may not be needed, establish a process of conducting a Capacity Check annually or before beginning the hiring process for a new position.
What is a Capacity Check
What comes to mind first when discussing the capacity of your team is time. But capacity is more than hours available to work. It is also the capacity of skill sets, experience, and growth. You can assess these components of your team by developing a survey asking for their input on a series of questions.
A word of caution - Don’t do a capacity check until you are ready to act on the responses. Asking for feedback, but not acknowledging it will hurt your relationship with team members and harm your company culture. Why is it important?
Team Health
Employee turnover comes with a high price tag for businesses and is often caused by poor culture or team health. Putting in the effort to retain employees will greatly support increasing the revenue of your business.
Three Reasons to Conduct a Capacity Check annually for team health:
Identify if a team member is overwhelmed with their current workload.
Pinpoint what motivates team members.
Determine gaps in communication or tools needed for your team to perform well.
Hiring
Hiring is a big step and can be costly. Before jumping into the hiring process, be sure you are utilizing your current resources to their fullest extent.
Three Reasons to Conduct a Capacity Check Prior to an External Hire:
Uncover someone’s desire to take on more work.
Discover someone with skills or experience in the area of need.
Realize a team member’s hopes of growing into a new position.
Develop Questions
Start with the goal in mind when writing the questions for your Capacity Check. You want to know about skill sets, time, experience, and growth.
Here are some suggested Capacity Check questions:
What job role, duties, or day-to-day items do you find fascinating and motivating?
Are you satisfied with your current workload? Or do you have the capacity and desire for more?
Do you have a skill set that isn’t being utilized? If so, what are these skills?
Do you have access to everything you need to perform to the best of your ability?
Do you feel that your job allows you to develop new skills?
Always include an open-ended question at the end. This can be used as a catch-all for any items that the employee feels are important to share but were addressed by the questions you asked. For example:
Do you have any other input, suggestions, or ideas you’d like to share with the Leadership Team?
Remember, allowing opportunities for feedback are vital to a healthy team.
Communicate to Team
Once you have developed your questions, now is time to distribute them to the team. Begin with sharing your motivation for asking. If you have Core Values, reference them and how the Capacity Check questions relate to supporting and protecting the core purpose of the business.
Focus on the need for honest and well-thought-out responses. Give a deadline, and follow up with those who don’t complete the questions. This conveys the message that each team member’s input is valued.
Communicate who will be reviewing the responses. Ideally, this should be only your Leadership Team. In order for team members to feel that their feedback is confidential, they need to be informed of who will (or won’t) be reviewing it.
Analyze Results
It is likely that many of the responses won’t be things you didn’t already know or anything that needs action taken from it. When analyzing the results, highlight those items that do, such as a team member who
wants more hours.
shares that work isn’t evenly distributed among their team.
has a skill set that isn’t utilized in their current role, but could be in another department.
claims communication issues in regards to not fully understanding their responsibilities.
These findings will help you identify the strengths and weaknesses of your team’s health. And in regards to hiring, you may realize you don’t need to hire another team member, yet. Or that you have someone to assist with picking up the extra work until you have a new person in place.
Remember to have thick skin when reviewing these responses. Open and honest feedback can hurt. Don’t consider these pain points as attacks, instead, they are opportunities for growth.
Act on it
Thank the entire team for their feedback. Let them know that you value it and plan to act on it where necessary. This will strengthen relationships with your team.
Follow up with individuals who have concerns that are worthy of having additional conversations. Never ignore a major claim or concern. If the team member felt that it was worth sharing, then it is also worth acknowledging.
For those who express interest or capacity in additional or different work, develop a plan to further assess these skills.
As a Leadership Team, identify any overarching issues and make a plan to address them immediately. This is where holding yourself accountable to Core Values or company culture is a necessity.
Lastly, keep the responses handy for reference. Review them during annual reviews with team members. Also when dealing with disciplinary issues or as other problems arise.
A thorough Capacity Check can increase team health, decrease turnover, and eliminate unnecessary hiring. All resulting in saving your business money, as well as time and headaches.
Download Your Free Capacity Check Sample Questions.
Need help developing a Capacity Check? Connect with us to consult on creating a Capacity Check customized for your team and assist with evaluating the results.
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