Are you ready to hire your first employee?

Here is all you need to know.

Our HR Advisors have created this guide is to help you work your way through hiring your first employee. Hiring the first employee is exciting because your business is growing, but also daunting.

Step 1: Are you ready to hire?

One of the biggest costs to a business is paying salaries.  So, you need to first of all consider can you afford to hire your first employee.  

If you do, think about what you want them to do. How are they going to support you in growing your business, ensuring your customers’ needs are being met, making your life easier?

You should also consider if you need someone full time or occasionally when there is a seasonal busy period.  If your business operates from your home or a garage, you will need to think about if you can accommodate the employee working from your home or whether you the work can be carried out remotely.

One thing not to underestimate is whether you have time to allocate to training and supervising the employee in the short term.  

These are some considerations you need to seriously consider before you start to advertise for your first employee.

It's a great idea to talk your thoughts through with someone, such as us, to ascertain if you are ready to recruit.

Step 2: Identify who is your ideal employee  

Draw up a list of the essential and desirable skills, knowledge, experience, and soft skills the ideal employee should have.  You will end up a person specification.  

Next, prepare a job description listing all the duties you will be expecting your new employee to carry out.

Think about the job title.  It’s very important because that is what applicants will be searching for on job boards.  It also needs to be current. For e.g., HR used to be known as ‘Personnel’, then it became ‘HR’ and now more often it is referred to as ‘People’.

You will also need to consider what hours of work you want the employee to work, what is a competitive salary and whether there are other benefits you might be able to offer, such as flexible working, working from home.  

Carry out some research by searching job boards yourself to see what is being offered that is similar to your vacancy. Job boards, recruitment companies, LinkedIn or on other social media platforms are all useful platforms that are used to advertise vacancies.

Make it easy for the applicant to apply so leave a contact name, email address.

Beware the legal stuff

Your advert should not discriminate.   The language or your description of your ideal candidate should be focused on the skills and experience needed to carry out the role rather than characteristics of a person as these could land you in hot water. For e.g., stating you want a male or female candidate or of someone at a particular age would be discriminatory.

Step 3: Sift through the applications and interviews  

Once you have advertised, you will hopefully have a number of applications.  Go through them and compare them to the person specification and job description to identify those who best meet the criteria.  This will help you to shortlist the applications and identify the most suitable candidates based on skills set and experience best matching to the requirements of the job.

You may decide to carry out a telephone/Zoom interview before a face-to-face interview or have just one face to face interview.  

Think about whether you need someone else to support you, act as another pair of ears and eyes, at the interview that can help offer feedback on the candidate.

It’s a good idea to have a set of questions you can ask all candidates so you can measure and compare their responses.  This also helps to ensure you stay on track and not ask any potentially discriminatory questions, such as when do you plan on having children?

Draw up a feedback table against your questions.  This is handy when reviewing all the candidates’ responses when making a decision.  It also is a useful document to evidence w why a candidate was not successful, and you can provide objective feedback if asked or challenged by a candidate that you have discriminated against them.

It’s important to be aware that candidates who are unsuccessful in interviews can ask for feedback and if they have concerns that they were not offered the job because of a protected characteristic (there are 9 of them, including age, race, pregnancy, disability), they can make a claim to an employment tribunal for discrimination.  Having your questions planned and the feedback recorded will act as a record of the interview.

Step 4: Making an offer of employment.

When you have found the best candidate, call them to offer them the job explaining you will send them the conditions of the offer and a contract for them to consider.  You might have to negotiate the pay and benefits during this call.

You should also contact others to let them know they were unsuccessful at this time and thank them for their interest and time.  Remember, unsuccessful candidates are likely to reapply for future vacancies, giving you a talent pool and spread the word about the positive experience they have had with your company. They could become your customers.

An offer of employment should provide the ‘headlines’ of the offer such as salary, job title, place of work, holiday entitlement, details of any other benefits.  

Making the offer conditional and subject to satisfactory right to work checks being completed, evidence of qualifications, satisfactory references and a satisfactory probation period.  If any of these conditions are not satisfied, you can withdraw the offer without having to legally dismiss the employee.

You should also send a full set of terms and conditions of employment, sometimes this is included in the contract of employment.  The successful candidate should have this document no later than their first day of employment. The team of HR Consultants at Lunar HR can help you to draft contracts of employment that are bespoke to your business and its requirements.

Step 5: Preparation for your new team member

There are a number of tasks you need to undertake before your employee starts.  

You will need to arrange to carry out a right to work in the UK check.  Review the government website to ensure you are following the most up to date guidance on this as it can carry a hefty fine and imprisonment if not carried out properly.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/right-to-work-checks-employers-guide

Take out employer’s liability insurance.

Inform HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) that you are now an employer.  Or you can ask your Accountant to do this for you.

Set up a workplace pension scheme that you and your new employee will both contribute to.  It can the government Nest scheme or you can set up a private pension scheme.

Plan what you want to cover on the first day and week detailing how you will support your new employee in the workplace.  

Ask your employee if they need any reasonable adjustments in the workplace if they have a disability.  As an employer your obligation is to consider making reasonable adjustments that will help the employee attend work and carry out their role.  Sometimes you can get support from Access to Work with aids and alterations needed in the workplace.

A staff handbook is another document you might want to consider creating.  This is a working document and will grow with your business.  It will be the point of reference your employees will go to if they have questions about the process to book annual leave, how to report their sickness absence, the disciplinary and grievance procedures.

We can help with providing all of the recruitment documentation.

Step 6: Be prepared for your new employee’s first day.

Set a good example by being prepared for your new employee.  By being organised with a workspace ready, computer passwords, and a plan detailing the first week will impress upon your new employee that you are organised, well prepared and it sets the tone for the employee on how you would like them to behave in the workplace.

Does this all sound like a lot of work? Our team of HR advisors can provide the right HR advice and support and recruitment services that align with your business. Just give us a call.