You’ve found the person. Now make sure you’ve employed them properly.
You’ve found someone who looks right for the job.
You’ve agreed the salary.
You’ve told them when you’d like them to start.
Job done?
Not quite.
Employing someone brings responsibilities that many business owners don’t think about until they’re already an employer.
What checks do you need to carry out?
What needs to be in their contract?
Which policies do you actually need?
What do you need to give them before they start?
And what happens if you get it wrong?
This is where good HR starts — before your new employee walks through the door.
You don’t need a 40-page handbook full of legal jargon. You don’t need to become an employment law expert.
You just need the right foundations in place.
The first employee changes things
Taking on your first employee is a milestone for any business.
It means you’re growing, you’ve got more work coming in and you’re ready to bring someone else into the business.
But you’re also now responsible for managing an employment relationship.
That comes with obligations.
From right-to-work checks and written employment particulars to holiday, pay, working hours, policies and workplace rights, there are things you need to get right from the beginning.
The uncomfortable bit?
You don’t get a free pass because you’re a small business.
There isn’t a point where you’re “too small” for employment responsibilities.
The good news is that you don’t need to do everything yourself.
What do I need to give my first employee?
Employing your first person doesn’t mean drowning yourself in paperwork.
But there are some important things you need to have in place.
Your recruitment and onboarding process should consider things such as:
- A clear job description
- A fair and appropriate recruitment process
- A clear job offer
- Right-to-work checks
- References, where appropriate
- Qualification or professional registration checks, where relevant
- DBS or other role-specific checks, where required
- A written statement of employment particulars
- Payroll and HMRC arrangements
- Workplace pension obligations
- Relevant HR policies and procedures
- An appropriate induction and onboarding process
One of the most important documents is the written statement of employment particulars.
Employers must provide the principal written statement on or before an employee’s first day of work. It includes key information such as their job title, pay, working hours, start date and place of work, with additional information required within the relevant timeframe.
But here’s something many first-time employers don’t realise:
The written statement isn’t necessarily the whole employment contract.
An employment contract can include written terms, verbal agreements, implied terms and terms contained in other documents such as workplace policies.
That means your documents need to work together.
If your contract says one thing but your business operates differently, you could be creating a problem for yourself further down the line.
What should an employment contract include?
A good employment contract should make it clear what you’ve agreed with your employee.
The exact content will depend on the role and your business, but it will typically cover things such as:
- Job title and duties
- Start date and continuous employment date
- Place of work
- Salary or hourly rate
- Working hours and working patterns
- Holiday entitlement
- Sickness and absence arrangements
- Notice periods
- Probationary period
- Pension arrangements
- Benefits
- Confidentiality
- Intellectual property
- Company property
- Disciplinary and grievance arrangements
- Relevant company policies
Some terms may sit within your policies or employee handbook rather than being repeated in the contract.
That’s fine — provided the documents are clear and work together.
Can I just download an employment contract online?
You can find plenty of employment contracts online, but the question is whether the one you’ve found is suitable, up to date and legally compliant.
For a busy business owner, working out which document to use — and whether it covers everything it should — can be time-consuming.
That’s where our Adept HR Policy Library can help.
Our Policy Library gives you access to a range of legally compliant HR policies, forms and templates at the point of download, including employment contracts and other essential HR documentation.
Rather than starting from scratch or relying on a template you’ve found online, you can access the documents you need and get on with running your business.
Less time searching for HR paperwork. More time running your business.
Do small businesses need an employee handbook?
Not every small business is legally required to have an employee handbook.
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have clear policies and expectations.
As your business grows, relying on everyone simply knowing “how we do things here” becomes harder.
A handbook can give employees and managers one place to find your key workplace policies, procedures and expectations.
Depending on your business, this might include:
- Holiday
- Sickness absence
- Flexible working
- Family leave
- Equality, diversity and inclusion
- Disciplinary procedures
- Grievance procedures
- Performance management
- Bullying and harassment
- Health and safety
- Data protection
- Confidentiality
- IT and acceptable use
- Social media
- Expenses
- Company property
- Whistleblowing
- Code of conduct
But you don’t need a policy for the sake of having a policy.
There is no prize for having 50 policies that nobody reads.
A small office-based business won’t necessarily need the same policies as a manufacturer, construction company or care provider.
Your documentation should reflect your business, your workforce and the risks you actually face.
What HR policies does a small business need?
This is where HR can quickly become a little more complicated than simply downloading a few policies from the internet.
Some employment laws require employers to have specific arrangements, procedures or protections in place. In other areas, having a clear written policy is not necessarily a legal requirement, but it can help you demonstrate that you are meeting your responsibilities, managing people consistently and dealing with issues fairly.
The policies your business needs will depend on your people, your industry and how your business operates.
That’s why we’ve structured the Adept HR Policy Library into three levels:
Mandatory / Core
These cover areas where there are important legal duties, protections or formal procedures that employers need to consider.
Our library includes policies covering areas such as:
- Anti-harassment and bullying
- Data protection
- Disciplinary procedures
- Grievance procedures
- Sexual harassment
- Equality and diversity
- Whistleblowing
For example, employers have a legal duty to take steps to prevent sexual harassment at work, and from 30 October 2026 that duty will strengthen to require employers to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment. Acas recommends considering policies, training, risk assessments and reporting processes as part of those preventative measures.
Essential
These are policies that can provide an important framework for managing common situations and running your workforce consistently.
Depending on your business, these may include:
- Flexible working
- Holiday
- Maternity and family leave
- Health and safety
- Recruitment and selection
- Safer recruitment
- Safeguarding
- Menopause
- Dress code
- Employee handbook and workplace rules
Not every business will need every policy. A care provider, for example, will have very different requirements from a small professional services business.
Recommended
These provide additional support around particular situations, risks and areas of good HR practice.
Our library includes policies covering areas such as:
- Sickness absence and capability
- Performance and probation
- Mental health and wellbeing
- Stress management
- Social media and internet use
- Expenses
- Employee code of conduct
- Mediation
- Conflict of interest
- Alcohol and drugs
- Equal pay
- Carer's leave
- Parental leave
- Neonatal care leave
- Use of company vehicles
- Financial wellbeing
The aim isn’t to give you a mountain of paperwork.
It’s to make sure you have the right HR documentation for your business, understand how it should be used and keep it under review as your business and employment law change.
Don’t know where to start?
That’s exactly why we created the Adept HR Policy Library.
Instead of spending hours searching Google, adapting old documents or wondering whether a template you’ve found online is still current, you can access a comprehensive library of HR policies, forms and templates that are legally compliant at the point of download.
You can choose the documents relevant to your business and access them when you need them — giving you a practical HR toolkit without having to build one from scratch.
The right documents. Ready when you need them.
What checks should I carry out before employing someone?
This is another area where “we liked them at interview” isn’t quite enough.
Before someone starts work, you need to consider which checks are appropriate for the role and make sure they are completed correctly.
Right to work
Employers must check that someone has the right to work in the UK before employing them.
The process will depend on the individual’s circumstances and can involve checking documents or using the relevant Home Office online service.
References
References can help you verify employment history and other relevant information.
You should have a consistent approach to requesting and considering references.
Qualifications and registrations
If a role requires particular qualifications, licences or professional registration, these should be checked before employment where appropriate.
DBS checks
Some roles may require a DBS check, particularly where employees will be working with children or vulnerable adults.
However, DBS checks aren’t automatically required for every employee.
The level of check depends on the role and the eligibility requirements.
Other checks
Depending on your business and the role, you may also need to consider:
- Driving licence checks
- Employment history
- Identity checks
- Professional registrations
- Sector-specific checks
The important thing isn’t simply doing lots of checks.
It’s having a consistent, proportionate process and knowing why you’re carrying out each check.
Where small businesses can get caught out
The biggest recruitment mistakes aren’t always dramatic.
They’re often small things that seemed unimportant at the time.
- You hire someone before completing their right-to-work check.
- You use an old contract because “it’s what we’ve always used”.
- You promise something during an interview but don’t put it in writing.
- You realise six months later that your contract doesn’t reflect the employee’s actual working arrangements.
- You discover an employee doesn’t have the qualification you assumed they had.
- You make a recruitment decision without properly considering whether your process was fair and consistent.
None of these necessarily look like major problems on day one.
That’s exactly why they can be missed.
Good HR isn’t about assuming something will go wrong.
It’s about putting sensible processes in place so that if something does go wrong, you’ve got a much stronger foundation to work from.
Getting it right from the start is easier than fixing it later
Think about the difference between these two situations.
Business A
They find someone they like, send them a basic contract, ask them to bring their documents in on their first day and deal with HR issues as they arise.
Business B
They have a straightforward recruitment process, complete the appropriate checks, issue suitable employment documentation, provide relevant policies and properly onboard the new employee.
Neither business needs a huge HR department.
But Business B has given itself a much better starting point.
Good HR isn’t about making recruitment difficult.
It’s about making sure the basics are right before you move on to the next thing.
And once the process is set up, it becomes much easier to repeat every time you hire.
Recruitment and employment support without the HR department
This is where outsourced HR can make sense for a growing business.
You don’t necessarily need someone working for you 40 hours a week.
You may simply need someone who knows what needs doing, can make sure it’s done properly and can be there when you need advice.
At Adept HR Services, we can support businesses with:
- Recruitment processes
- Job descriptions and adverts
- Job offers
- Employment contracts
- Written statements of employment particulars
- Employee handbooks
- HR policies
- Right-to-work processes
- Pre-employment checks
- DBS and safer recruitment support
- Employee onboarding
- HR compliance health checks
- Bespoke policy libraries
Whether you’re employing your first employee or growing an established team, we can help you put the right foundations in place.
You don’t need hundreds of pages of HR paperwork.
You don’t need to spend your evenings searching Google for employment law answers.
And you don’t need to employ a full-time HR professional just because your business has employees.
You just need the right support at the right time.
You’re building a business. Let us help you build the right employment foundations around it.