G: i) Employment and Contracts

When employing staff you cannot discriminate at any stage of the recruitment process (apart from a very few limited exceptions) on the grounds of race, sex, (including gender reassignment), marital status, sexual orientation, religion,  belief or disability.

If taking over an existing business, you may be required to take on all the existing staff under TUPE rules, which usually means that you have to abide by their terms and conditions of employment, (except for pension arrangements). 

There are many ways of finding potential staff:

• Word of mouth
• Local Advertising (including on the premises)
• Local newspapers
• Job Centres (people often look in a job centre to see what jobs are available, and then apply directly to the business, bypassing the  job centre)
• Specialist publications (for specialist skills)
• Agencies

It is essential to allow enough time to recruit the correct staff.Staff are expensive, and you need to recruit staff that will be assets to your business. Poor staff can be a liability, and may affect the growth of your business.

There can be advantages to employing part-time staff (flexibility, less national insurance payments), and temporary staff (cover for busy periods/holidays etc).

It might be prudent to employ some staff on a temporary/short-term contract basis first.This way,you can see how good they are, before employing them on a permanent basis. 

If you employ any staff, there are many factors to be considered, (employment law, minimum wages, holidays, sickness, compulsory time off to look after children etc at short notice, national insurance, rest/lunch breaks).  You must also ensure that you don’t discriminate on any of the grounds listed above.
      
You may need check on the qualifications and experience of your proposed staff, as not all applicants are as honest as they may seem. You need to allow time for such things as notice periods, training, for them to gel as team before you start.

Your staff can literally, make or break your business as they are the public face of the business. Even if they do not meet customers, the way they communicate by telephone, answer a query or deal with suppliers or customers, can make the difference between your success or failure.

You need to be aware that staff can cost you additional money and problems
over and above their wages/salaries. Payments over a certain amount a week can incur a National Insurance charge on an employer. You may not be able to recover all the ‘private’ costs for the use of vehicles etc. You have to allow for provision for maternity/paternity cover, parental time off without warning and a whole raft of other employment legislation.

Contracts of Employment
An employment contract exists as soon as a job offer is accepted, even if it is not written. The terms of the offer can be written, spoken or implied by the
nature of the job on offer, or a combination of all three. If an employee will be with you longer than a month, you must draw up written terms and conditions, and give a copy to the employee within two months. 

It is advisable to give an employee a contract of employment before they start work. It should contain information on the following basic structure (with extra information as needed):

• When the employee started
• Number of working hours per week
• When they may reasonably be expected to work
• Rate of pay
• Holiday entitlement
• Employers name and address
• Place of work
• Job description
• Length of notice both you and they may give
• Details of rest/lunch breaks
• Details of any dress code/requirements, and smoking, drugs & alcohol  policies
• Disciplinary and appeal procedures
• Employment legislation which may be pertinent

Information from you as the employer such as:

• Sickness procedures 
• Paternity/Maternity leave
• Rest Break rules   
• Night working
• Time off for other than annual leave etc
• Trade union rights  
• Rights of Part time workers
• Flexible working rights

Having this in place is for both the employer and employees' protection.