WIB Entrepreneurs Explore How to Build High-Performing Teams for Growth

There comes a point in every entrepreneur’s journey when working harder is no longer enough. 

The orders are increasing, customers require more attention, administrative tasks are piling up, and the founder can no longer manage every part of the business alone. Yet hiring someone introduces a new set of questions: Who should I employ? What role should they perform? How do I manage them effectively? What happens when they fail to meet expectations?

These employee management challenges formed the focus of the final workshop for this year’s Women in Business (WIB) mentorship cohort, and the invitation was extended to the WIB alumni community as part of ongoing engagements to provide value to entrepreneurs beyond their cohort.

The workshop was facilitated by Isabella O. Esantsi, a Human Resource Management consultant and WIB mentee. Beyond her professional background as an HR, Isabella is also the CEO of Unlimited Trade Supplies, a producer of cocoa-based beverages sourced from sustainable, fair-trade farms. This tells you the room wasn’t just learning from a consultant but from a founder who has lived the same hiring and people-management decisions her audience faces every day. 

She took the participants through five basic elements of human resource management with the theme “Building and Managing High-Performing Teams for Business Growth.”

The women entrepreneurs learned how to identify when a business genuinely needs to hire, define roles clearly and use structured interviews to select suitable candidates. The session also emphasised the importance of setting expectations from the first day and creating a workplace culture shaped by consistent leadership. They learnt the general rule of thumb for hiring: hire slow, fire fast.

On performance management, they were introduced to SMART key performance indicators, effective feedback and delegation. They were encouraged to address poor performance early and provide employees with clear, measurable expectations.

Isabella also treated employment contracts, leave and probation requirements, SSNIT and PAYE obligations, termination procedures and workplace policies under Ghana’s Labour Act, 2003 (Act 651). She emphasised that HR compliance is not only paperwork but an important safeguard for both the business and its employees.

A major lesson was the need for founders to delegate, reduce micromanagement and develop other leaders within their businesses. As Isabella noted, “If your business cannot function for one week without you, you have a job, not a business.”

Finally, Isabella shared with the women templates for job descriptions, offer letters, onboarding, interviews, KPIs, performance reviews and employee handbooks. It was a very interactive and successful workshop because each entrepreneur had stories or experiences to share about working with people and employees.

The final module focused on the transition from doing everything personally to leading others.

Connecting businesses to wider support

For some time now, GNBCC has been exploring the potential of harmonising its projects and looking for ways to  connect project beneficiaries to other GNBCC projects under the Private Sector Development Programme. Thus, after the earlier workshop, the various project leads of the SME Support Desk and the Horticulture Business Platform (HBP) shared how the women entrepreneurs can benefit from their projects.

The GNBCC SME Support Desk is a practical business development programme designed to help Ghanaian agribusinesses build the internal structures, systems, and capabilities required to grow sustainably, attract investment, and access larger markets.  With three core support desks: the Accounting Desk, the Marketing Desk, and the Human Resource (HR) Desk, they are set to help SMEs transition from informal operations to structured and investment-ready entities.

The Horticulture Business Platform (HBP) is a membership-based platform that brings together producers, buyers, exporters, processors, input suppliers, service providers, institutions, and development partners to strengthen collaboration, improve market access, and advance sustainable horticulture in Ghana. 

While this workshop concluded the year’s WIB workshops, engagement with mentees and alumni will continue. We appreciate all the WIB mentees and alumni community, the SME Support Desk, the Horticulture Business Platform and Isabella for the success of the final workshop.