Beginning to manage a workforce
Running your own business is tough, especially if it is just you in the business as you have to do everything. As you begin to employ staff some things get easier as there are more people to do the work, but you also take on extra responsibilities and have much more administration work.
Examples of the extra things you need to think about and put into place are:
- Formal HR letters, contracts of employment and employee handbooks,
- HR policies and employment forms
- Disciplinary processes, grievances, redundancies, absence and probation periods
- Employee appraisals
- Holiday policy and managing staff holidays
- Absence management
- Performance management
All this takes time and effort, especially if you decide to do it all yourself. In effect you have 3 choices:
- Employ or contract an HR partner to do everything for you (assuming you have the budget available)
- Work out what you need to do and source or create all the documentation as well as create all the necessary processes and policies yourself (assuming you have the expertise and time available)
- Source a software package that makes it easy for you to do everything (still requires a budget but saves time, money and effort). As an example, look at this video.
If you have an accountant, they should be your first stop for business advice. If you don’t have an accountant or they can’t help, BuBul has a wide range of experts available. For more advice, contact our expert* Sue on LinkedIn.
*We’ve picked experts we know and trust who are good at what they do. All of them will give you at least an extra 30 minutes free advice if you contact them and would then charge their normal prices. They don’t pay to be on BuBul and don’t give us any money from anything they earn as an expert.
