There comes a time in every workshifter's life when the idea of hiring staff evolves from a fairy tale to a necessity.  For the solopreneur breed of workshifter, this issue precipitates two contradictory realities.  On the one hand, you cannot afford to hire a high paying salaried position.  But on the other hand, you cannot afford to hire some schmuck at 5 bucks an hour either.  In other words, hiring a low wage laborer typically constitutes someone who is going to engender a "clock in, clock out" mentality which obviously isn't congruent in a workshifting paradigm.

In Greek mythology, Procrustes was the badass spawn of Poseidon.  Procrustes had a lock on the only pathway through Mount Korydallos to Athens.  As travelers would roll through on their merry little way to Athens, he would invite the weary adventurers to stay in his guest room.  In a bizarre turn of events, he would ask them to lie in his bed.  It appears as if Procrustes was both a psychopath and an incredibly anal dude.  Because if their legs were too long and swung off the bottom of the bed, well, he would just chop them off.  And if the traveler's head hung off the top of the bed, he would lop that sucker off as well.

I know what you are thinking, and no, I am not suggesting you invite potential staff candidates to an interview, and if they don't fit your criteria, to subsequently amputate their body parts.  
What I am saying is this.  As workshifters trying to grow our team, we are in a Procrustean Bed.  It doesn't all fit.  We need good...no, great people working with us in order to achieve our hopes and objectives, but at the same time we are most likely cash strapped and cannot afford a "quality" hire.

So, what do we do?

For the most part, we have two options to procure new team members.  We can either find people (typically friends or associates) that possess at least a drop of the entrepreneurial penchant, and develop a non or low salaried partnership with them in exchange for equity in our company.  Or we seek to hire potential staff abroad in economies in which we can afford to pay good salaries leveraging communities such as oDesk or Guru.  I'm sure there are many derivative possibilities from these two choices, but the point is that in order to crawl out of our uncomfortable Procrustean Bed we have to get creative about how we find new team members or staff.

Over the past year, my company has grown from me all by my lonely workshifting self, to adding three additional staff. After trying everything to bring on new people and screwing up more times than I can remember, I saw an interview with my buddy Ryan Carson, Founder of Carsonified, where he was asked "What do you look for when you're hiring staff?" His answer completely realigned my perspective in hiring new staff.

Whether you go local, create a partnership, or outsource to find your new staff, these three qualities are absolutely essential to the architecture of an indelible employee.

They must be...

Curious

A curious person will not only do what is asked of them, but will have an internal desire to learn the what, how, and why of everything they do...and probably what everyone else does too!

Helpful

A helpful person doesn't just settle with what they are asked to do, they actively seek to help and empower everyone around them to be better at their jobs.

Proactive

A proactive person doesn't just check tasks off a list, they anticipate and create solutions before problems even occur.

In your experience, what are the qualities that make or have made for outstanding staff?

Do you have any examples?

Photo by: The Eggplant