Recruiting Your First Employee - The Paperwork
If you’ve reached a point in your business where you could do with an extra pair of hands, the natural next step may be to take on an employee. If so, no doubt you have thought hard about the skill set your new hire will need. But how much do you know about your obligations as an employer and the paperwork side of taking on a new hire?
In this article, I have set out some pointers:
Word Your Recruitment Advert With Care.
If you are too specific about the type of person you wish to recruit for a role, or state that applicants must have a particular characteristic, the chances are you will inadvertently write a discriminatory advert. This is definitely something to avoid, not least because it has the potential to lead to a claim for discrimination against you, possibly by a job seeker who feels unable to apply for the role as a result of the way it is worded.
For example, if you were to write “start-up tech company seeks junior software developer to join a young and vibrant team”, the emphasis on, “junior”, and on joining a “young team”, could give the impression that you do not intend to recruit someone over a certain age. This has the potential to amount to age discrimination, which can result in unlimited compensation being awarded against you in an Employment Tribunal.
Make sure your advert focuses just on the skills you need. Double check to make sure it doesn't come across as being aimed at a particular category of person. For example, it would be better to write “start-up tech company seeks software developer to join a friendly team, no experience required”.
Check Your New Recruit Is Entitled To Work In The UK
Once you’ve selected an applicant for the role, you’ll want to make them a job offer. You should clarify that your offer is subject to them providing evidence to you that they are entitled to work in the UK. As an employer, you have a duty to ensure that you have obtained evidence of their entitlement BEFORE the individual starts work. Failure to do this can result in a penalty and even carries the potential for criminal liability.
The Contract and Company Handbook
All new employees are entitled to a statement of the terms of their employment from the first day of their employment. You are required to provide certain specific information. This is usually dealt with in an employment contract and it would be a good idea to ask an employment lawyer to assist with this, to ensure your employment contract complies with all the current requirements.
In order to prepare the contract you will need to have considered what you want to offer the employee (such as how much holiday they get) and also what you want to protect in the company (for example, perhaps you’ll need a clause to help protect any confidential information that you may share with your employee).
Similarly, you will need, at the very least, a basic employee handbook, setting out your policies on disciplinaries, grievances, holidays and sickness - all of which the employee is entitled to see. When you start thinking about it, there may well be other policies you’d like to have in place, such as whether employees can use their own computers for work, rules on encrypting and password protecting anything particularly sensitive etc. An employment lawyer would be able to help you put together a contract and handbook that is tailor-made for your company, giving you peace of mind that you have the protections you need in place.
Data Protection
As an employer you will gain possession of your employee’s personal data. On the most basic level, you will have their name, address and bank details. In reality, you will hold a lot more than just this. It is likely their personnel file will contain appraisals, emails about them, information relating to their health etc. Holding all this personal information comes with a strict duty to ensure a) that the employee understands what personal information you hold, b) the reason you need it, c) what you intend to do with it and d) their rights in relation to it. This is dealt with by providing the employee with a Privacy Notice, covering all of this information, which should be given to them at the start of their employment.
You are also required to ensure that you have a system in place to make sure your employee’s personal information can’t be inadvertently seen by someone else. Failure to do this not only leads to potential embarrassment for you and your staff member, but could lead to a data breach that, in some cases, may need to be reported to the ICO and has the potential to result in very large fines.
To help protect your company against data breaches and related fines it would be sensible to take advice on what you should include in your Privacy Notice and on what your specific duties are as an employer in relation to your employee’s personal data.
Familiarise With Your Duty to Provide Access to a Pension Scheme
If you employ even just one person in your business, if they meet certain eligibility criteria, they will be entitled to automatically enrol into a pension scheme. Your duty, as an employer, is to ensure that you have a relevant pension scheme in place.
Insurance and Health and Safety
You are responsible for the welfare of your staff while they are at work. That means ensuring that you provide a safe and appropriate work environment. In line with this, you should obtain advice as to what insurances you should have in place, in case your employee brings a claim against your company.
The above list may seem a little daunting, but the good news is that once you have set up everything for your first employee, you’ll have everything you need in place to take on your next employee. It is worth putting the time and effort in to get it right with your first employee. Taking advice at this early stage will pay dividends later, as the paperwork you have in place at the beginning is repeated over and over again as you take on more staff. The best way to avoid a headache involving a lot of staff, is to make sure you get it right from the beginning!
