How to hire your first employee

Once a small business takes off, there often comes a time when the owner needs to bring someone else on board to share the workload. It isn’t always possible – or healthy – for one person to do everything. Having an employee to handle the day-to-day tasks can be an important first step in growing the business.

If you’ve reached this point with your business, you might now be wondering how to go about employing your first member of staff. To help you, Starling Bank has created a brief guide that sets out each key stage of the recruitment process.

What the guide covers

• What does your business need?

Learn why it pays to have a clear idea of why you’re hiring and what you’ll need the new employee to do.

• What can you afford?

Understand what financial decisions you must make when recruiting your new employee.

• What can you offer?

Once you know who you need and what they’ll cost, you must then work out the finer details such as working hours, employee benefits and so on. Find out how to do this.

• How will you choose the best candidate?

Learn more about conducting interviews, getting references, and ways to narrow down your potential recruits.

• Which forms do you need to complete?

Find out how to prepare employee contracts and what your responsibilities are in terms of documentation and record-keeping.

• How will you prepare for your employee’s first day?

Get information on what a typical induction process looks like, and the things you’ll need to consider for when your new employee starts work with you.

Download the free business guide

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