Running a small business is not an easy task, and usually requires you to wear multiple hats at the same time. With a small team of employees with different responsibilities, it can be easy to lose track of things.
One area in particular that a lot of businesses either struggle with or forget about is the HR side of the business. As experts in the subject, we can’t stress enough how important HR is for businesses, so we’ve decided to detail some of the reasons in this article.
Employee Contracts
The law in England & Wales states that employees need to be given “a statement of certain specified terms” within 2 months of starting a job, so employers need to at least provide the basic information surrounding employment.
Contracts of employment are absolutely crucial to any business, and failure to provide these will leave your business open to a lot of legal trouble.
A contract will list an employee’s rights, such as minimum wage, notice periods and how many hours they are contracted to work, and protects the employee from poor working practices.
All employee contracts need to include information about the job such as the title and job roles, as well as the hourly rate or salary that the person will be paid. It should also include time off policies (holidays, sickness, bank holidays, etc), working hours/schedule and termination terms and conditions.
If there is no contract in place, employee will not know where they stand and could technically leave whenever they want, not having to work any notice period due to the lack of a contract.
Training & Development
The training and development of staff is imperative to the growth and success of your business, and keeping track of this development is a job that is usually left to HR.
In order to get the most out of your team, communication is key. Regular meetings, one to ones and performance reviews are essential for encouraging an engaged workforce and needed for staff development.
Training is an area of businesses that can get often overlooked but giving staff a platform to develop is only going to help the business. Implementing training procedures and keeping on top of staff development through on-site or online training courses will only improve their skills and make them all the more useful to the business.
We offer a wide range of online training courses that cover a variety of different subjects and industries, including Leadership Development Programmes to equip your managerial staff with the correct skills to lead. To learn more about these courses, click here.
Holidays, Sickness & Absence Management
Without a dedicated HR department, how are you supposed to keep track of holidays and sickness & absence?
Taking time off from work is something that everyone does, whether it’s a paid holiday or you’re feeling too ill to go in.
It is important to be able to track attendance so that you are aware of how many days employees have taken over the year. Tracking time off thanks to sickness or other absences is important as well, as too much time off should be raising some concerns and should be questioned. Employees who are taking frequent time away from work should be asked about this time off, with both their wellbeing and ability to work being a concern.
Each employee is allowed a certain amount of annual leave days throughout the year, and failing to keep track of this could see employees going over the limit and taking more days than they should.
Having a HR database will help you to manage employee records, securely store important documents and allow you to track absences and approve holiday requests. The technology used in these systems makes it easier to see everything in a simple form and will clearly state how many holidays employees have taken and have left.
Employment Law
An area of business that mustn’t be forgotten about is Employment Law. This is mandatory for all businesses but is especially important for startups.
Employment Law covers a range of issues, including disciplinary situations, redundancies, disputes and probationary periods. If any of these issues are not dealt with in the correct way an employee could take you to an Employment Tribunal.
Employment Tribunals deal with the majority of cases surrounding employment, and usually involve subjects like unfair dismissals and discrimination of any kind. They are used to settle disputes between an employee and an employer and fees were scrapped to submit a claim in 2017.
Before this landmark court victory, Employment Tribunal fees led to a 70% drop in cases so with the fees now gone, there has been a huge rise in claims.
If you are taken to an Employment Tribunal and you haven’t got the right documents or representation to back up your case, you could end up paying out a large sum of money. In incidents like this, you’ll need someone like Wurkplace to help win the case.
Job Satisfaction
On top of all of the things that affect your business directly, employee satisfaction and engagement should be a priority of all businesses.
Businesses are run by employees and would cease to exist without the hard work put in day after day by the members of staff. It is their hard work and determination that keeps the company thriving, so keeping them happy in their roles is really important.
Through the likes of regular communication and feedback, employees will feel valued in their roles and a boost in morale will likely mean a boost in productivity. Keeping staff members feeling positive about their job is always a good thing and will increase loyalty to the company.
Valuable Time
By outsourcing your HR needs to Wurkplace, you will be freeing up valuable time that can be better spend on other things.
Allowing HR to be taken care of by a team of experts will enable you to focus on growing and investing more time into the business itself, which is a positive for everyone involved.
Running a small to medium sized business can often leave you with your hands full, so HR can sometimes get left on the back burner. Without having to worry about what is happening as far as HR is concerned, you can use the time to focus on the day to day happenings and put all of your effort into the business.
Where We Come In
As you can see, there are so many reasons why HR is absolutely essential for any business, and these are only a few of them.
We know the stress that comes with running a company, so we offer a team of HR experts that can change your business for the better. Our exclusive HR packages include everything we’ve talked about in this article and more, and we can work with you to tailor a package specific to your needs.
If you’d like to learn more about any of the HR services we offer, please click here or alternatively get in touch to speak to one of our professionals.
Let Wurkplace take the risk out of your business.