Taking Steps Towards Becoming an Employer

Setting up a small business is no easy feat. When you first start out, you tend to take on the majority of work associated with setting up independently. You identify a gap in the market and come up with a product concept to fill it. You conduct market research to determine whether there would be demand for what you have to offer. You come up with a brand name and a brand aesthetic. You take out copyright or trademarks on these things. As time goes on, you might accept a little help from freelance individuals. You’ll probably give learning CSS and HTML a miss and call in the help of a professional web designer instead. You’ll engage with a professional product photographer to take appealing images of your stock. You might even outsource a marketing campaign to get things off the ground. But at some point, you’re going to have to take on some more permanent help, otherwise you’re not going to be able to keep things ticking over. This means becoming an employer. Now, becoming an employer is a huge responsibility. Whether you take on a couple of part time staff or commit to a full team of full time staff members. But here are a few pieces of information that should, hopefully, make the process a little easier for you.

Get to Grips with Employment Law

Before you get started, understanding employment law is extremely important. Getting to grips with what is expected and legally required of you will help to ensure that you don’t slip up at any point of the process. Now, this is a far reaching part of becoming an employer, but some different areas that you need to focus on include legalities surrounding:

• Employment Contracts
• Employment Termination
• Redundancy
• Discrimination in the Workplace
• Equal Pay
• Minimum Wage
• Acceptable Working Hours
• Different Types of Leave (Annual, Sick, Parental)

As long as you understand what you need to do to ensure that you abide by laws in all of these areas, you will be able to avoid inappropriate or irresponsible behavior.

Taking Health and Safety Seriously

As long as people are working for you, you have to provide them with a safe workplace and you can only expect them to carry out tasks that have had a risk assessment carried out and that have been proven to be safe and reasonable. You will need to ensure that all employees are fully trained in their roles and that they do not experience illness or injury at your hands. If you fail to achieve this, employees may have to take time off in order to recover. Not only is this morally problematic, but it can impact your business’ progression too. Remember that employees who have been wronged and who have suffered as a direct cause of your actions can seek legal action against you. You don’t want to have to fork out large sums of money in the form of compensation!

Becoming employer is a huge responsibility. So mull the decision over properly before going ahead with it. If it’s the best option for your business, make sure to follow the above guidelines in order to be the best employer that you can!