All business owners hope that they will grow, increase profits, and make a success of their new venture. In order to do that, you’ll need to at some point start recruiting some help. Employing people can seem daunting, there’s the legal obligations, procedures, admin, and management of employees to consider. To succeed you need to ensure you are recruiting the right team members and getting the best out of them. That doesn’t mean working them hard, that means making them feel valued and part of your business, so they are motivated to do their best.
HR Now is Jersey’s leading provider of interim and outsourced HR services, and we also have a specialist HR recruitment agency. We know what’s needed to ensure that your business is set up ready for growth by harnessing a team who can help you achieve success.
In this six-part series, we aim to give you a brief step-by-step overview of what’s required to get your business ready to employ:
1/ RECRUITMENT
2/ ONBOARDING
3/ THE PAPERWORK AND LEGALS
4/ SIMPLIFY YOUR HR RESPONSIBILITIES WITH TECH
5/ RETENTION
6/ IF IT GOES WRONG
Preparing for New Employees
When a new employee joins, it’s important that you onboard them in the right way for several reasons. Firstly, you want to be sure that they know what is expected of them and do the best job for the business. Secondly, you don’t want your other employees to be put out in any way by how the new joiner is brought into the company, and thirdly, you want the new employee to feel as though they are being welcomed into an environment where they can flourish. Without ticking all these three boxes you run the risk of having a high turnover rate in your staff.
So, how do you do that?
- If you took our advice in the first blog post, then you were keeping your new employee excited during and after the offer stage, so they felt like they were making the right decision to join. Make them feel a part of your team right from the outset. This includes providing a contract of employment and statement of main terms. This is important whether they are a permanent full-time employee or on a zero hours contract.
- Communications must be transparent and honest. Do you have an Employee Handbook that new and existing employees can readily access that clearly sets out your policies, procedures, and rules? Some of these are dictated by law and some of these will be bespoke to your business. It’s very important that all colleagues understand what is expected of them to avoid disciplinary issues, and negate the need for an employee to seek to redress a situation. This is relevant for inter-employee relations as well as their relationship with the business. Your Handbook is also your opportunity to explain ‘how it works around here’ so it sets the tone for fun vs. formal, flexible vs. regulated and so on. Talk about how you live your values.
- Spend time with the employee and talk about their and your objectives for the next three months. If your organisation is too large and you can’t personally put the time in, you should at least take some time to welcome them aboard and ensure you have a trusted member of the team who can run the induction period for you. Remember to assess against those objectives and provide constructive feedback. Many companies will have a probation period for new employees. This gives both parties the opportunity to ensure that it’s the right role for them and for you. This needs to be clearly explained and at the end of the probationary period, there should be a structured assessment and feedback process and successful, extended or otherwise probation needs to be confirmed in writing
- Reward, benefits, and performance management. Are employees entitled to any benefits? Make the entitlements clear, maybe some are effective at the end of a successful probation period. Also, don’t be that manager who always criticizes and never praises. Constructive performance management, on a regular basis, is critical to ensuring employees feel valued, can improve, and learn and know they are delivering what you expect. Your employees are the front line for your clients. If they’re demotivated, then that will reflect on your business. You can never give too much clarity.
In part 3 of this series, we’ll look at some of the legal requirements and obligations when it comes to employing staff.
If you are unsure about what to do, or don’t have the time and resources, you can get in touch with HR Now’s experienced team and we can advise and support you through all these steps.
Or call: 01534 747559