Getting people in to help your business grow is our topic of the month with the ACCELERATE series, so let’s investigate the whats, whys and hows of employment.
Why should you recruit staff?
Whilst more people obviously means you can get more business in, understanding that the moment your first employee is hired, your role as a business starts to shift, with one eye having to stay on your staff. To understand if this is something you want to do, let’s look at the pros and cons.
Pros
- You can complete jobs faster, potentially increasing revenue
- More than one job can be done at once
- New ideas can be brought to the table
- Employees can develop their role and increase their returns to your business
Cons
- New salaries to pay will affect your costs
- More paperwork
- Money spent on equipment and training
- Poor hiring or high labour turnover can lead to extra costs
The law about recruiting
Per the Gov.uk website there are several steps necessary when making your first hire, so without my interjection here are the facts:
- Decide how much you are prepared to pay, noting that this figure can’t fall below the National Minimum Wage (which varies depending on a person’s age). Many companies sign up to the more generous ‘living wage’, which is calculated to equal basic monthly expenditure.
- Check your candidates’ legal right to work in the UK. Hiring illegal immigrants is against the law – regardless of whether you treat them well – and your business could be prosecuted if it breaks this rule.
- Investigate whether your recruits have a criminal record and run a DBS check (formerly known as a CRB check), particularly if your work brings you into contact with children, vulnerable adults or security installations.
- Get insured. It’s likely you already have insurance to cover your work, customers and members of the public, but you need employers’ liability insurance as soon as you take someone on as an employee.
- Put the terms of employment in writing and send a copy to your new recruit to sign. If you’re employing someone on a permanent basis (for one month or more) then you must provide them with a written job description that you both agree on.
- Register as an employer with HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC). You’ll need to declare your new status up to four weeks before you write your first paycheque.
- Work out whether you have to provide a basic workplace pension under the government’s auto-enrolment scheme. Most employers are now covered by this legislation, so it’s likely you will have to sign up.
Last edited by Lauren; 04-08-21 at 12:49.
