As a growing business, one of the hardest decisions is making sure you hire the right people. Payroll is the largest expense for most organizations and isn’t something that should be decided based on a one hour interview. It always surprises me that a majority of the leadership within my clients provide their management the authority to make $85,000 hiring decisions based on an interview, but they have to put together a complete ROI proposal and await approval to make a $25,000 hardware decision. I don’t know if that will ever change, like death and taxes, but there is a better way to make hiring decisions and more and more companies are choosing to do so: contract-to-hire.

I compare it to the sample your kids ask for at Graeter’s. They don’t know if they like the Blueberry Sorbet so they ask to taste it first. As parents we sit there and watch their eyes light up or reach for the closest trash can. I’m not saying we should be as quick to judge with people, but I am saying you should try before you buy. With a contract-to-hire, you have the ability to pay an hourly rate for 3-6 months before you have to make a hiring decision. If the person is brought in and fulfills expectations, it normally works out for them at the end with you making an offer. However, if they interviewed well and they don’t live up to the hype, you can cancel the contract at any time – typically with no penalties. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a small, medium or large business, but it should matter whether you hire the right person.

Let’s just say you’re a small business or enterprise company, and you have some projects that have been on the list for the last 8 months. Every week you walk into your staff meeting and say “no update.”

In this economy everyone is strapped for resources and we tend to dedicate the money and people to the big projects and not necessarily the quick wins. Executives tell us all the time it’s about ROI, but the truth is, the larger projects have more risks. I agree that ROI is important but companies need to keep in mind one simple fact…if you get more out of the project than it costs…it’s worth doing.

Companies need to consider consulting organizations that can help with some of these shorter-term projects. Every win an IT Manager can have will help change the way their internal customers view them.