The best time to hire is now, when you need that addition to your workforce.

The doom and gloom that the media are portraying can influence consumer behavior, that is true. However smart employers know the value of their business and push ahead continuing to hire, whilst those whose attitude is negative go down.

There are winners and losers and every single type of economy. People make millions from down situations. When the front page of the papers forecast the “r” word – a recession - they are ignoring the fact that the Australian economy is strong and growing. Make no mistake. There are black and white photos and movies of lines of thousands of men out of work, looking to take any job in the nineteen-thirties. What a difference now! Australia is a rich country with plenty of opportunity as every migrant knows as do the millions of people aspiring to come and live who are on the waiting lists.  Certain industries are not as busy as they were previously such as the property market, but it is still moving well, whilst others such as technology-based ones are booming. Retail clothing shops may have their sales falling but owners of these shops are making sales online with the same stock, showing good profitability. During both good and bad times smart people find ways to run a profitable business and keep growing.

Now is the time to hire skilled people who are leaving businesses where the owners do not have the courage to move forward. Now is the time to rethink your operation and drag it into today’s world. It may be by marketing your products to the global economy. It may even be marketing right under your nose – interstate. It could be something as simple as digitizing your business, barcoding your stock at source right through shipping, warehousing and the shop floor. It could be repairing that broken-down truck sitting there and putting it to work with another driver.

Ask yourself: Are you spending hours each week on manual tasks to exhaustion such as bookkeeping, driving trucks or operating machinery when you should be engaged in management, spending time checking out government grants, discussing tax advantages with your accountant? Hiring a bookkeeper, a driver or another factory worker, part or full-time would bring in more profit in the long-run. 

Ignore those headlines. The newspapers love sensationalism that sells their papers, as do the online media who live on subscriptions and the TV who certainly do not want to have boring programmes as their ratings which bring in advertisers are important to them. Remember that time is an asset so if you don’t evaluate your own business and move upwards and forwards that time will never return.

Be positive!