Don't Waste the Chaos
Don't Waste the Chaos is a weekly podcast for small business owners and HR professionals who want practical, no-nonsense people strategy.
Host Kerri M. Roberts is an HR strategist, consultant, and founder of Salt & Light Advisors with 20+ years of experience turning reactive HR into proactive systems.
Each Tuesday, she breaks down hiring, onboarding, compliance, culture, and leadership - the kind of strategy that typically costs thousands in consulting, delivered in under 40 minutes.
If you're managing people and want to do it better, this show is for you.
New episode every Tuesday.
Learn more about the show and Kerri at www.kerrimroberts.com.
Don't Waste the Chaos
Workforce Planning for Small Business - How to Hire Before You're Drowning
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Reactive hiring creates desperate hiring, and desperate hiring creates bad hiring decisions. Most small businesses only hire when they're already drowning - the worst possible time to hire well. Workforce planning is the system that gets you ahead of it.
In this episode, Kerri walks through:
- Why hiring is what you do, but workforce planning is how you decide whether, when, and what role you actually need
- The three most common strategic hiring mistakes (starting with hiring a person instead of a role)
- Capacity problem vs. capability problem - and why adding headcount won't fix a skills gap
- The 4 signals that tell you a new hire is genuinely justified
- The role clarity test to run before you post any job
- The 2x Exercise for structuring roles for growth, plus simple succession planning for small teams
YOUR ACTION ITEM: Run the 2x Exercise this week - draw your org chart today, then draw it at double your current revenue, and the new roles that appear are your next hires in priority order.
If you're about to hire under pressure, take the free HR Audit to see whether your people systems are actually set up to support a good hire before you post the job. → saltandlightadvisors.com/hraudit
Resources to keep building:
🎯 Take the free HR Audit — Score your HR systems in 5 minutes and see exactly where your gaps are. 👉 saltandlightadvisors.com/hraudit
📚 Explore the HR coursework — Self-paced courses, tools, and resources to build your HR systems step by step. 👉 saltandlightadvisors.com/resources
✉️ Get the Monday Email — One practical idea for leaders, every Monday at 5:28am. 1,000+ leaders, 50%+ open rate. 👉 saltandlight.myflodesk.com/saltandlightadvisors
Need fractional HR support or want to talk through a specific challenge? 👉 saltandlightadvisors.com/contact
Don't waste the chaos - embrace it.
