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Hiring staff more efficiently
If your start-up business is doing well, but you don't have enough time in your day to take on more work, the next step towards continued growth is hiring more staff in key business areas.
A business owner must consider carefully the business areas where extra staff would make the biggest difference. For example, if you are a great sales person but are being held back by the inevitable administration and finance tasks involved with running a business, you should first take on staff who can take those jobs off your hands.
Similarly, if your forte is office administration you may want to take on staff who specialise in sales and marketing.
Unfortunately taking on new staff isn't as simple as putting an ad in the newspaper and holding interviews. There are lots of legal and administration tasks involved, as well as preparations to make for their arrival.
One of the first things to think about is how much extra work you anticipate there will be. Is there enough to take on a full-time employee from the outset or would you want someone to start out part-time with the option to take on more hours at a later date?
Deciding on this should in turn give you an idea of how much money you would need to offer as a salary in order to hire a candidate who will do the best job possible. The salary needs to entice people to apply for the position and also to motivate them to do their job well.
Don't forget there are other potential costs involved with hiring staff in addition to the salary. You may need to buy extra computer equipment, office furniture, or possibly even a company car if you are hiring sales staff to go out on the road. There may also be solicitors' costs for drawing up contracts.
If you only need help for ad-hoc projects, it may be worth taking on a freelancer, consultant, temp or contractor. As these types of worker are usually self-employed, it can be less of an administration burden for the small business owner because they would pay their own tax and national insurance.
If you decide on this route, you need to make sure that the contractor is in fact self-employed, and will pay their own income tax and national insurance. There is a leaflet available from the HMRC website (IR56) that explains more about this area of employment.
For any non-self-employed staff, you must make tax arrangements with Revenue and Customs, and take the income tax and NI owed out of their salary each month. A new employee must provide a P45 and National Insurance Number when they start work.
When hiring staff, you must not discriminate against age, sex or disability. If you hire more than 5 people your premises should be able to accommodate the disabled - ramps, lifts and disabled toilets are a minimum requirement.
Once a candidate has agreed to take a job with your company, you should give them a written contract within 3 months. It should lay out the main terms of employment such as pay, hours, holiday entitlement, pension provision (all businesses with more than five employees must offer access to a plan), notice periods and disciplinary procedures.
If you are taking on a few staff you may wish to draw up company policy documents on certain aspects of your business. The policy should detail how each issue is dealt with and what is expected of the employee.
Think about having policies on holiday and other leave, working hours, resolution of disputes, confidentiality and the use of company facilities like e-mail and staff training to name a few.
Finally, staff are becoming much more aware of their rights than ever before, therefore it pays to be prepared and protected. According to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) almost a third of applications to employment tribunals involve companies with less than 10 employees.
The HSE can provide you with an information pack about making your workplace a safe and healthy environment. There are also risk assessment kits available to help you assess any dangers in your workplace.
A spokesman for the HSE says: "If you have to shut down your business because of an accident, or lose an employee to sickness, it does cost. In the short run it might cost to put health and safety right, but the payback is in the long term."
The HSE gives out heavy fines and the occasional prison sentence for companies that break health and safety standards. All businesses with employees should ensure that they are fully covered by Employer's Liability and Public Liability insurance at a minimum.
Hiring staff to spread your workload and to expand your business is a positive step forward for a company. As long as a business owner understands the issues involved and takes it one step at a time, there is no reason why his company should not carry on growing successfully.
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