An overview of the Government’s seven steps.
Hiring an employee for the first time is an exciting moment for any business owner. Suddenly, you’ve got another pair of hands to help out with jobs that used to fall entirely on you – and with that extra support, new opportunities for growth are possible.
There’s a vast amount of preparation and administration to do beforehand, however, and a lot of things you need to know depending on who and how you are hiring.
The Government advises there are seven main steps a business owner needs to take when they first become an employer. In this article, we go through each of these steps in detail so you know exactly what you need to do.
1) Decide how much to pay someone
How much you’re going to pay someone needs to be the first thing you decide and must, as you’ll be well aware, be equivalent to at least the National Minimum Wage, which changes regularly and varies by the employee’s age.
If a worker is over the age of 23, you must pay them the National Living Wage, which is £9.50 an hour as of the 2022/23 tax year. It doesn’t matter how small your business is – you must always stay within this rule.
There is a calculator for employers on the GOV.UK website that you can use to accurately check that you’re correctly paying a worker the National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage. This also shows you whether you owe your employee payments from the previous year because you underpaid them.
Download the full guide below;