As business begins to pick up again, it may be time to build up your staff. Here are some tips to help you develop the team you want, excerpted from Mastering the Business of Remodeling.

• Consider all employees key employees.
• Hire people who know more about their specialty than you do.
• Hire people who can grow with the company.
• When in doubt, hire the person who wants the job most.
• Be sure employees know what is expected of them.
• Base company pay on merit, not seniority.
• Figure out how to pay employees more than other employers do.
• Tie pay to productivity and performance.
• Keep employees informed.
• Be sure every employee understands how the entire company works and how his/her job fits into that mission.
• Praise often. Develop inexpensive prizes, awards, and bonuses to keep motivation high.
• Challenge employees. Give them as much responsibility as they are ready for. Allow them to fail as well as succeed.
• Watch the stress level. No employee should have to suffer burnout on the job.
• Develop simple but effective training programs to keep all employees moving up the ladder.
• Delegate, rather than direct. Agree on the goal, but let the employee have increasing input on how that goal is to be achieved.
• Get all employees vitally interested in job costs, annual sales volume goals, and budgets.
• Be a great coach. Remodeling is a team activity.