Six Factors to Consider When Hiring Employees for the First Time

Taking on employees is a huge responsibility, particularly in smaller companies, where the employees that you hire can have a huge impact on business success. The effect that your hires have can be either positive or negative, so it’s important to choose wisely. And, taking on an extra pair of hands or more can boost company productivity and enable you to offer a wider range of services to your clients. Unfortunately, things going wrong means that you could run the risk of damaging crucial business relationships and massively losing out financially. The good news is that with the right preparation, you can prevent this from happening and get the most from hiring employees for your firm. Here’s an essential checklist of everything that you will need to do before taking on your first hire.

#1. Finding the Right Candidates:

Hiring the wrong person can lead to poor performance and damage to your small company with unnecessary training costs, wasted time and more. So, keep these tips in mind and improve your chance of getting it right the first time. Firstly, you should sit down and determine exactly what it is that you want your new employee to do. This will enable you to write a detailed job description and advert that will attract the best talent. Some key things to include are your company’s name, a job title, the salary, a description of the person required, a description of duties, and something about your company and what you do. And, your job advert should include a call to action – include clear details on how to apply, or a link to a page where your prospective candidate can start applying right away.

#2. Equal Opportunities:

Being an equal opportunities employer is more important than ever in today’s day and age. It is against the law for an employer to discriminate a person on the grounds of age, sex, race, marriage, disability, religion or sexual orientation. You should ensure that all stages of the application process are designed to treat everybody equally; make sure that job requirements do not include any marginal or unnecessary requirements that may exclude individuals due to these criteria.

#3. Employee Rights and Contracts:

Before a new employee begins working for you, it’s crucial that you make all the right preparations to ensure that they are able to work in an environment where their rights are understood and respected. You will need to collect necessary information, establish a contract, and ensure that you are aware of all the rights offered to employees. The contract that you draw up will cover the legal relationship between yourself and your employee, and should be drawn up once the offer of work is accepted. However, bear in mind that nothing needs to be written down for employee rights to exist; some come into effect from the moment that the offer is accepted, and others after the employee has been working for you for some time. Make sure that you have a solid understanding of basic employee rights and at which point during employment they will come into effect.

#4. Specific Rights:

Today, employees have a right not to be discriminated against in the workplace on the basis of sex, age, race, religion, disability or sexual orientation – these rights will come into effect from as soon as they accept your offer of employment. They also have a right to enjoy equal pay with the opposite sex, as long as it can be shown that they are doing work of equal value. Every employee is entitled to a notification of how their pay is made up, which is usually given in the form of a paycheck each month. And, employees have the right to not be unfairly dismissed during any period of their employment with you. Don’t forget that if employees become parents while working for you, they will be entitled to maternity or paternity leave. And, employees have the right to request flexible working conditions that should be taken into reasonable consideration.

#5. Insurance:

Once you start hiring employees, you’ll need to put more thought into the kind of insurance that you have to cover your company. Bear in mind that your regular liability insurance may not stretch as far as your employees, so it may be necessary for you to update your policy before bringing new hires on. Almost everybody who hires employees will require workers’ compensation insurance; this will keep both yourself and your employees covered in the event of an accident, injury, or illness that occurs as a result of work. The type of workers’ comp insurance that your company will require depends on the type of industry that you operate in. For example, the construction industry requires workers’ compensation at all times after hiring one or more employees, which includes the company owner. On the other hand, most businesses in the non-construction industry will require workers’ compensation after employing at least four members of staff. Check out this article to learn more about the workers’ comp requirements for employees in Florida.

#6. Freelancers and Contractors:

Last but not least, it’s becoming more and more commonplace for small businesses to save money by taking on freelancers and self-employed contractors, rather than full-time staff. However, there’s still plenty to think about – while workers’ comp might not be required in this situation, you will still likely be required to draw up a contract between yourself and the contractor to lay out exactly what is expected from both parties. Although this type of relationship is generally a lot more flexible compared to full-time employees, it’s still a wise idea to get everything down in writing so that disputes can be avoided further down the line. Make sure that you include their status as a contractor rather than an employee, and specific details about any project(s) that you have brought them in to work on.

Hiring employees is often a vital step towards growth for your small business, but make sure that you are fully prepared before you start.