Inside Franchise Business

HIRING AND FIRING

The basics of employing staff..

- LEE-ANNE HUNT AND TEGAN ROSE

Your people are the face of your business. Good people can help you lift your business to the next level. But sometimes they are the stuff that keeps many business owners awake at night. In this article we’ll give you our top tips for how to get those good staff and what to do if by chance you don’t.

Let’s start at the beginning with the hire. Once you get this right the rest should fall into place or at least that’s the theory!

Our top 4 tips for hiring:

1. KNOW WHAT YOU WANT

This means understand­ing your business and the type of person you want in each role. Start with defining the values of your business that all employees will need. This could be qualities such as team work or accountabi­lity.

Next, think about the role in detail; as an example, it would be important for a customer service operator to be a good communicat­or, confident and friendly whereas as a kitchen hand would need good attention to detail and to be unphased by repetitive tasks. Think about the absolute bare minimum you need in qualificat­ions and/ or experience. Our top tip would be to hire the person with the right qualities and then train or teach them the skills they need.

2. DO IT RIGHT

Ensure your contracts/employee agreements are compliant and use them! We know it’s

nice to hire a friend or their children but doing it legally will save confusion, heartache and friendship­s if it all goes wrong at the end of the day.

Know the Modern Award that covers your staff and the applicable pay rates. The Fair Work Ombudsman site www.fairwork.gov.au can assist you with this or hire a HR consultant to take the hard work out of it.

3. HAVE A RECRUITMEN­T PROCESS

Think about the steps you need to go through. A typical process involves placing an advertisem­ent, shortlisti­ng, phone or video interview followed by a group or personal interview. And most importantl­y don’t forget to referee check! Our top tip: ask a referee if they would hire the person again.

4. INDUCT NEW STAFF

Again, it’s about the processes, make sure everyone is on the same page regarding your values, workplace health and safety, bullying and harassment and your day to day work instructio­ns. This is particular­ly important if you are hiring young people who have never held a job before – they don’t know what they don’t know and that could cost you and your business.

Induction should include some initial “on the job” training. If you’re not conducting this yourself make sure you have a written process/checklist for your managers to follow and employees to sign off that they have received the training.

If you follow our tips above on hiring hopefully you won’t need these next tips. But just in case you need to follow a disciplina­ry process, here’s what you need to do to ensure it’s fair.

1. KNOW THE RULES

Understand the Small Business Fair Dismissal Code (you can find this on the Fair Work Ombudsman website) or contract HR consultant­s to do this for you.

2. MAKE SURE EVERYONE KNOWS

YOUR RULES

Have processes and policies in place and ensure EVERYONE from your managers who are implementi­ng them to your most junior employees know and can access them. Before embarking on any performanc­e management or disciplina­ry policy refer to your policies. Many small businesses have tripped themselves up at the Fair Work Commission by failing to follow their own policies and processes.

3. DON’T LET ISSUES FESTER

Have the difficult conversati­ons early before they become a major issue. Don’t do this in front of other employees or by group message. Take an employee aside and talk to them. And remember this is a two-way conversati­on. If you find it hard to know where to begin start by asking how your team member feels they are going and what you could do to help.

Remember to document all your conversati­ons. And to keep these locked away where other employees can’t access them. If you do end up terminatin­g an employee, you will need to show you have followed a fair process.

4. MEET YOUR OBLIGATION­S FAIRLY

Ending someone’s employment is never an easy decision and can be particular­ly hard in a small business where employees can feel like family. Sometimes the best you can do for that employee and your remaining team is to let that person go. But you can do it fairly by paying notice and entitlemen­ts promptly.

And never respond to a disgruntle­d ex-employee with anger. You are the boss and your team takes their cues from you. Tegan Rose & Lee-Anne Hunt, HR Dept Ringwood, have over 20 years’ experience in HR, change, learning and developmen­t and communicat­ions for small to large organisati­ons, nationally and internatio­nally. They are extremely passionate about supporting businesses to grow and thrive through good people practices.

 ??  ??
 ??  ??
 ??  ??
 ??  ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Australia