With so many rules and regulations on who you can employ, how and when, we’ve produced this quick reference recruitment guide to help you stay up to date and keep you from being caught out.
Advertising Jobs
Watch for discrimination right from the start – that goes for both positive or negative discrimination.
“We want a keen young trainee” – whoops, that’s age discrimination. “Man needed for heavy lifting” – nope, that’s sex discrimination. You can only do that if a person’s sex is relevant to the job, for example you need a man to clean male toilets.
Be aware of advertising a job that goes against other laws - if you say they must do 60 hours a week, that’s against the Working Time Regulations. If you advertise a wage of £3 an hour, that does not comply with the minimum wage.
Interview Process
During interview, be very careful what kind of questions you ask. It’s natural to want to know as much as possible about someone that may join your business, but you can’t be seen to be discriminating. If you are, you are leaving yourself open to an employment tribunal.
The four most obvious areas to be aware of are sex, age, disability and race. You must also treat people of all ages the same. It is illegal to say someone is too old for a job. You can only judge someone’s suitability for a role by their skills and experience.
If a candidate discloses a disability to you, that’s not a legally valid reason to not offer them a job. You must consider if that person can do the job, perhaps with some adjustments. When you ask questions about their disability, ask them what you need to do to enable them to do their work, rather than why the disability stops them doing it.
And on the issue of race, the critical issue here is stereotyping people. This kind of discrimination includes ethnic as well as the country the candidate was born in.
As a general rule don’t ask any question unless it will help you make a decision on employing this person.
Right to employment
When you have found the right person, you need to check they have a legal right to work in the UK. Anyone born within the EU will have that right automatically, but it is worth checking. It would also be worth doing a criminal records check on anyone that will be working with children or in a position of trust.
Statement of Employment
Every employee is entitled to a written statement of employment within their first two months of work. This sets out the facts of their job such as their salary, hours of work and holiday entitlement. It also clarifies the business’s policies on sick leave and the disciplinary and grievance procedure.
Tax Responsibilities
And when you process their pay, don’t forget that it is your responsibility as the employer to ensure that Pay As You Earn (PAYE) and National Insurance deductions are correctly made, as well as any student loan payments.
If by chance you find some error of law or fact in any Net Lawman information page, do please tell us. We should also welcome your suggestions for new subjects for information pages. These notes:
Do not provide a complete or authoritative statement of the law;
Do not constitute legal advice by Net Lawman;
Do not create a contractual relationship;
Do not form part of any other advice, whether paid or free.
