When your business has developed to the point where you need
additional help, courage is needed for the next step. It has to be taken
though, otherwise your business won’t be able to grow any more.
According to the government’s web page about taking on your first employees, there are seven things you
need to take action on immediately. Actually you’ll find there is a lot more to
it than that, but its list is a good starting point.
What Does the Government’s List
Cover?
The first item is to decide how much you will pay. It has to
be at least the National Living Wage (currently £7.20 per hour) unless the
worker will be under the age of 25, when the National Minimum Wage applies for
the appropriate age range. If you think the worker might be worth more than
that, and you can afford it, you can decide on a higher starting figure, which
will possibly attract more suitable candidates for the job, but take care not
to set a precedent that you may not be able to keep up.
To comply with employment law, you may need to have
Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks of the criminal records of
employees, depending on the nature of your business, and whether it involves
security, children or other people who are vulnerable. You must also ensure
that all applicants are not here illegally and have a right to work. And you
should have employers’ liability insurance in place before employment starts.
If this is your first employee, in 2016 you probably won’t
have to have a workplace pension in place yet, but from 2017 it will most
likely be a requirement, so you need to start planning for it. You do need to
register with HMRC as an employer.
Once you have your chosen employee, you have up to two
months to issue a written statement of employment particulars or, if it
applies, before the employee travels abroad for you. The statement should
include the terms of the contract that automatically applies once a job offer
of longer than 1 month has been issued and accepted.
What Else Should Be Considered?
Among the considerations not covered above is the legal
minefield of recruitment. Great care must be taken to avoid an allegation of
discrimination in any form, whether you advertise for free on social media or
go the more expensive advertising routes or use a recruitment agency. You will
also need to set up employment policies and procedures to cover things like
bullying, staff grievances, holidays, sick pay and much more.
Even with only one employee, you must set up a payroll and
make the appropriate contributions of tax and National Insurance and report on
this to HMRC in real time. Your local bookkeepers will be able to help with
this. In many cases, they often take over all the payroll activity so the
business owner doesn’t need to worry about it. They’ll also be happy to advise
and help on all the other aspects of taking on the first employee, including
whether you could do with other professional help for anything.
