Top 10 Things to Do When Hiring An Employee in the UK

1.) Provide an Employment Contract

You must provide all your employees with an employment contract within 2 months of the employee’s start date; and a failure to do so could lead to a complaint to an employment tribunal. This is best done on or before the first day.

You can download a UK Employment Contract here.

2.) Provide an Employee Handbook

You are not legally required to have an employee handbook, but most good companies will use an Employee Handbook as it helps the business to manage their employees more effectively and to to comply with employment law. A good employee handbook will tell the employer what their legal obligations are to their employees and it will also explain to the employer what the employee’s statutory entitlements are. This will help to reduce the risk of the employer falling foul of employment legislation and facing a potentially costly tribunal claim.

You can download a UK Employee Handbook here.

3.) Provide A Grievance and Disciplinary Procedure

All employees are by law entitled to receive a copy of the company’s Grievance and Disciplinary Procedure. It should detail the exact statutory procedures that the employer needs to follow when dealing with performance issues, absence or misconduct or a grievance.

You can download a UK Disciplinary and Grievance Procedure here.

4.) Set Performance Goals for The Probationary Period

It is normal and strongly recommended that new hires join on a probationary period and this should ideally be stipulated in the employment contract or explained during the interview process. If you just hired a new employee, you can use this probationary period management form to manage their performance during the probationary period. It will enable you to set goals for the probationary period and track and review performance against those goals.

You can download a  probationary period management form here.

5.) Set Role and Performance Expectations 

Problems can occur if employees don’t know what is expected of them. In fact, in my experience, it is one of the most common reasons that new hire under-perform or fail.

This can be achieved by providing the employee with a clear job description, including key performance indicators and performance targets.

This Performance Management Kit includes all you need to set role and performance expectations. Key contents include a job description template and guide which you can complete to set role expectations and two different types of appraisal form which you can use to document performance expectations.

You can download a Performance Management Kit here.

6.Ask Your New Hire if They Have Any Pre-booked Holidays

Pre-booked holidays and the new employers unwillingness/inability to honour them are are a are a common cause of dispute for new hires. That’s why it’s vital that you ask employees about their pre-booked holiday and schedule in to your holiday booking system. If you don’t have an absence tracking system of some kind, it is recommended that you get one as absence and holiday queries and administration can be time-consuming.

You can download an easy excel based holiday and absence tracking system for startups here. Alternately, view a list of cloud based absence tracking systems here.

7.Tell The New Hire When and How Often Performance Will be Reviewed

Annual reviews are now a thing of the past. Only 13% of staff and 6% of CEOs believing year-end reviews are effective, finds Leadership IQ, and many employees actively hate and distrust the annual appraisal format.  The modern approach is conduct lighter-touch appraisals on a quarterly or even monthly basis. Quarterly appraisals allow your company to be more agile, quick-to-market, and responsive-to-change, giving you the edge in the modern, unpredictable business world.

You can download a Quarterly Performance Appraisal Form Now.  Alternately, view a list of cloud based performance management systems here.

8.Collect Essential Personal Data Like Emergency Contacts and Payroll & Benefits Information

This is basic information but it’s so easy to forget and can be so troublesome if you don’t have it right when you need it. Collect all this vital personal information relating to payroll, benefits access, emergency contacts asap and ensure it is stored safely, inline with GDPR, ensuring that it is secure and easily accessible by the right people.

You can use my excel based HR Database and HR Dashboard for this task. Alternately, view a list of cloud based HR data management systems here.

9.Verify the Employee’s Right To Work in the UK

You must check that a job applicant is allowed to work for you in the UK before you employ them. You can either: check the applicant’s original documents or
check the applicant’s right to work online, if they’ve given you their share code. You could face a civil penalty if you employ an illegal worker and have not carried out a correct right to work check.

10. Assign Your New Employee a Buddy

Starting a new role can be daunting: new jobs, new faces, new procedures, new hires might not even know where the canteen and toilet is.  Assign your new a buddy who is charged with answering questions, introducing them to the business and generally helping the new hire integrate. Here is a good guide for what a buddy is supposed to do.