3 Things To Remember When You Hire Your First Employee

 

1. Pay

All employees are entitled to be paid for the work that they have done, and unless the employment contract states otherwise, they are also entitled to be paid if they are ready and willing to work but you have not provided them with any work to do. With a few exceptions, all workers are entitled to the national minimum wage. Any pay above this depends on the employee’s individual contract of employment.

2. Sick pay

It is not a legal requirement to provide company sick pay (CSP), and it’s up to you to decide whether you will or not. If you decide to do so, then you must state this in your contract of employment and adhere to the guidelines and requirements that you specify.

If you decide not to offer CSP, and your employee is ill, then he will be entitled to Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) if he:

• Is sick for at least four days in a row (including weekends, bank holidays and days that they are not usually contracted to work); and

• Has average minimum weekly earnings;

• Complies with the notification requirements.

The first seven days (including weekends or days the employee is not rostered for work) will be self-certified by the employee. After that the employee must submit some form of medical evidence from the eighth day of sickness onwards. This will normally be a medical note supplied by the employee’s GP or a hospital.

To work out the daily rate of SSP, you must divide the weekly rate of pay by the number of days the employee usually works in that week. A week runs from Sunday to Saturday.

3. Holiday

Under the Working Time Regulations 1998, workers (including part-timers and most agency and freelance workers) have the right to 5.6 weeks’ paid leave each year.

There is no separate right for paid time off for public holidays. Whether there is an entitlement to paid time off will be dependent on the terms of the worker’s contract. Paid public holidays can be counted as part of the statutory 5.6 weeks holiday entitlement.

It is important that you specify in the employee’s statement of written particulars the rules and requirements surrounding holidays. For example, how much notice do you want employees to give before requesting time off? Is holiday allocated on a first come, first served basis? Do you have a limit on the number of employees taking holiday at the same time? Do you have a ban on holiday being taken at a particularly busy time of year? Do you have a Christmas closedown, which means that employees should keep some holiday in hand?

Employees have to take holiday by agreement with you. They cannot just take time, even for reasons connected to religious festivals. If holiday is taken without permission it will be an unauthorized absence.

There is no right for statutory holiday to be paid unless it is taken as holiday. The exception is where an employee has accrued holiday at the date of termination. In those circumstances he will be paid for any holiday accrued but not taken on a pro-rata basis in proportion to each complete month of service in the holiday year prior to such termination.

Note that holiday continues to accrue during periods of absence, such as maternity leave or sickness absence.