As specialist employment lawyers in Glasgow, we support businesses across all stages of their operations and people management – from their first hires to full company restructures and beyond.
In this blog, we focus on the very basics of employing people, sharing a list of the things you need to arrange before bringing people into your business, alongside tips on how to streamline your employment process.
What do you need to stay on the right side of employment law?
A big part of our work with clients sees us offer advice and guidance when it comes to challenging situations relating to employment law – covering hiring and firing, employment tribunals, disciplinaries, and ensuring that a business is operating within diversity and inclusivity policies.
To stay on the right side of employment law when hiring your first employees, you need to ensure you have the following documents and contracts in place:
- Employment contract for every new employee which outlines the terms and conditions of their employment. Ideally, this should cover their job role and the expectations relating to that role, as well as benefits and organisational expectations in terms of behaviour, notice periods, and more.
- Pay which meets minimum wage. A team of specialist lawyers can help you to assign pay scales to your business and to different teams within that business.
- Pensions for all employees.
- Holiday entitlement.
- Internal policies which provide more information on things like disciplinaries, terminations, benefits, and all the other touchpoints which may come up during employment.
Where to start when hiring new staff members
Anyone who has hired a staff member in the past will know that to enjoy successful recruitment, your job vacancies need to be widely advertised with extensive information relating to pay, benefits, expectations, and more.
With inclusivity more important now than ever before, many businesses and companies are exploring ways to ensure equal opportunities throughout all stages of the recruitment and onboarding process, encouraging applications from prospective candidates from all walks of life, and keeping applications anonymous to ensure a focus on skill rather than gender, age, and other factors.
Another area of focus when it comes to hiring is company culture and how important it is to your staff that you explore different benefits and ways of working. A successful recruit needs to integrate well into your company as well as into their role, with ongoing training available to upskill and ensure that all employees feel that they are being invested in terms of their development.
The benefits of working with an employment lawyer
Employment law is an ever-changing part of running a business, with our annual retainer service helping to ensure that your business is always ahead of the curve when it comes to changes within the industry.
For more information on our annual retainer service, and to discover how we can support you whether hiring your first employee or growing a global company, get in touch with us directly today.