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Taking on staff

At Rus­sell & Rus­sell we can pro­vide start-up busi­ness­es in the Lanark­shire area with help and advice. Here are some gen­er­al points to con­sid­er regard­ing tak­ing on staff.

As your busi­ness grows, you will prob­a­bly need to hire new staff mem­bers.

Recruiting the right people

With­out good peo­ple your busi­ness can­not suc­ceed, and for a new or grow­ing busi­ness, mak­ing the right recruit­ment deci­sions can be the dif­fer­ence between long-term suc­cess or fail­ure.

Con­se­quent­ly, you need a struc­tured process for recruit­ment. Here are some things to con­sid­er:

Identify exactly what you are looking for

Avoid get­ting swamped with piles of CVs. Talk to exist­ing staff and define the vacant role that needs to be filled. Then build a pic­ture of the ide­al can­di­date, and find which appli­cants most close­ly resem­ble this pic­ture.

Can you promote from within your team?

Pro­mot­ing an exist­ing staff mem­ber to fill a vacan­cy can save enor­mous cost and risk com­pared to exter­nal recruit­ment. But make sure that the employ­ee has suf­fi­cient train­ing and skills to cope.

Make sure that you are objective when interviewing

Struc­ture your inter­view process, take notes and be con­sis­tent. Lik­ing the per­son is not enough: you need to dis­cov­er how com­pe­tent they are. Open-end­ed ‘behav­iour­al’ ques­tions are good for deter­min­ing this: you ask can­di­dates to describe real-life sit­u­a­tions at work when they solved prob­lems sim­i­lar to the ones they might encounter in your busi­ness. See more on con­duct­ing inter­views below.

Offer staff recruitment incentives

Exist­ing staff might know good peo­ple who would be inter­est­ed in the job. Offer­ing a finan­cial incen­tive can save you a for­tune in recruit­ment agency costs.

Have an effective induction procedure

Ensure that all new staff have a for­mal induc­tion pro­gramme, intend­ed to make them famil­iar with their new job. This will pay great div­i­dends in the long term.

Conducting interviews

Hir­ing suit­able staff is essen­tial to the suc­cess of your new busi­ness, so it is vital to get the inter­view process right. Here are some of the fac­tors to con­sid­er if you want to avoid los­ing a great can­di­date, or employ­ing an unsuit­able one.

Consider the post carefully

Draw up a job descrip­tion detail­ing the respon­si­bil­i­ties involved. This will help you to clar­i­fy the type of skills and expe­ri­ence that you’re look­ing for in the employ­ee. Make a list of these char­ac­ter­is­tics and com­pare it with your impres­sions of the can­di­date.

Set the right questions

Every­body knows the clas­sic inter­view ques­tions. But stan­dard ques­tions can elic­it stan­dard respons­es, so you need to focus on what it is you are real­ly try­ing to dis­cov­er about the can­di­date. The old favourite “Where do you see your­self in five years time?” won’t nec­es­sar­i­ly tell you how the appli­cant will actu­al­ly per­form in the spec­i­fied role.

Inter­view­ers are increas­ing­ly using open-end­ed ‘behav­iour­al’ ques­tions which allow the can­di­date to demon­strate how he or she has act­ed in rel­e­vant sit­u­a­tions in the past. For exam­ple, you could ask the appli­cant: “Can you describe a time when you were hard-pressed to meet a dif­fi­cult project dead­line with lim­it­ed resources? How did you han­dle the sit­u­a­tion?”

Ten great interview questions

‘Traditional’ questions

  1. Why are you here?
  2. What moti­vates you?
  3. How do you take advan­tage of your strengths and com­pen­sate for your weak­ness­es?
  4. What’s the one accom­plish­ment you’re most proud of and why?
  5. What are the most impor­tant attrib­ut­es of suc­cess­ful peo­ple, and how do you mea­sure up?

‘Behavioural’ questions

  1. Give an exam­ple of a time when you need­ed to adjust quick­ly. What did you do and how suc­cess­ful were you?
  2. Describe an occa­sion when you had to deal with a dif­fi­cult cus­tomer. What solu­tions did you come to?
  3. Tell me about a time when you had to make an impor­tant deci­sion and a col­league strong­ly dis­agreed with you. How did you resolve the issue?
  4. Describe a time when you were asked to do some­thing for which you had no train­ing. How did you han­dle the task?
  5. Tell me about a peri­od when your work­load became very heavy. How did you cope with the pres­sure?

Prepare yourself

You want the can­di­date to be relaxed, not over­ly wary, so explain the form the inter­view will take before­hand. Be pre­pared to answer the can­di­date’s ques­tions about the com­pa­ny’s size, mis­sion, cul­ture and future. The inter­view is a two-way process, and in a com­pet­i­tive job mar­ket you may want to cre­ate as good an impres­sion for appli­cants as they do for you. Why not put togeth­er a one-page fact­sheet with details about the busi­ness?

Take notes and be consistent

Keep notes of your impres­sions as the inter­view pro­gress­es.  These will act as a mem­o­ry aid when inter­view­ing a large num­ber of can­di­dates, and will also help you to be con­sis­tent and use the same cri­te­ria for each inter­vie­wee.

Check references

Be sure to fol­low up ref­er­ences from can­di­dates’ pre­vi­ous employ­ers. Remem­ber that what is not said can be as impor­tant as what is said.

Avoid discrimination

It is essen­tial to ensure that you do not dis­crim­i­nate against any can­di­dates on the grounds of race, age, gen­der, reli­gion, sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion or dis­abil­i­ty.

Regulations

There are many legal impli­ca­tions for tak­ing on staff. Areas to con­sid­er include:

  • Equal oppor­tu­ni­ties- there must be no dis­crim­i­na­tion on the avail­abil­i­ty of jobs, train­ing and pro­mo­tion on the grounds of race, sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion, gen­der or dis­abil­i­ty.
  • Terms and con­di­tions of employ­ment -these must be pro­vid­ed to all employ­ees.
  • Nation­al Min­i­mum Wage
  • Work­ing hours
  • Fair and unfair dis­missal, and notice peri­ods
  • Ille­gal work­ers
  • Statu­to­ry sick pay
  • Statu­to­ry mater­ni­ty and pater­ni­ty pay
  • Employ­ers’ lia­bil­i­ty insur­ance
  • Health and Safe­ty

This is not an exhaus­tive list. You should always seek pro­fes­sion­al legal advice.

There are also tax issues to con­sid­er, such as set­ting up a PAYE scheme. We can help you with this.

If you are start­ing a busi­ness in the Lanark­shire area and would like pro­fes­sion­al assis­tance, con­tact Rus­sell & Rus­sell.