Whilst every small business looks to keep their costs to a minimum, it’s important to set up a number of HR processes. These will ensure that your business runs efficiently and will likely save you money in the long term. Ensuring excellent HR practices will improve your relationship with your staff, which in turn is likely to improve their motivation and productivity.
Managing HR is one of the most difficult jobs for a small business, usually because their small team is pushed for time – having to hire quickly in order to fulfil additional work and grow the business.
Certain HR processes must be followed in order to meet HR regulations and laws. Firstly, if you are employing staff, you are legally required to have employers’ liability insurance, which provides cover if any member of staff suffers an injury in the workplace. The minimum liability cover is £5 million, but this does vary depending on your type of business. Secondly, it is legally required that an employer provides each employee with a written contract which states the terms and conditions of their employment.
Alongside the legally required HR documents, it is highly advisable to create extra documents to aid staff management, which in turn will create a great working environment and an efficient business.
The first document that it is sensible to create is an ‘Employment Handbook’. This document should outline any processes that you expect your employees to follow. It’s important to provide each employee with this handbook as it helps to protect the employer should there be a reason to later terminate an employee’s position. Perhaps the biggest benefit of writing an employment handbook is that it forces the employer to treat all staff equally and this helps to promote a great team atmosphere as staff feel that they are being treated fairly.
A ‘Change of Circumstances’ form is useful because it ensures that your staff records are always up to date. This form should be a simple document that lists the core details that you need to hold about each member of staff.
A ‘Holiday Request Form’ is vital to any business and this form should be filled out by your employee and returned to you in plenty of time giving you the opportunity to authorise or refuse a holiday. This document ensures that all holidays are tracked so staff don’t take too many holiday days and everybody is clear about their allowance over a given period. It also enables you to ensure that you always have enough staff working on a set day. It is highly recommended that two copies are kept of this document, as missing holiday forms can lead to guess work and extra holiday days being given unnecessarily.
Another important form that small businesses ought to create is the ‘Leaver Details Form’ or ‘Exit Interview’ document. This document can give you a great insight into the running of your business as you can discover why the leaver is going to work elsewhere. This document should also include leaving dates and any remaining holiday entitlement, so that it is clear to both parties what payment is owed. This document helps to keep a good relationship between the employer and the leaving party.
This post was written on behalf of SnowdropKCS, leaders in payroll and HR software.
What HR Processes Every Small Business Should Have In Place.
