5 Employees, What do I need to know

[Top Hat]

5 Employees, What do I need to know

Just about to take on employee no 5.

Need to do something about employee pensions, but what?

Is there any other stuff I need to know?

[ian69]

Once you have 5 employees you need a full health and safety policy and your employees have the right to form/join a union for collective bargaining.

[Jodimyatt]

I found somewhere like the Chamber of Commerce is good for this sort of thing they offer you discounted health care, pension brokers etc.

[Stephen]

You will need a written statement of disciplinary & grievance procedures (all employers need that now) and a contract of employment.

I'd also suggest you consider a performance appraisal if you don't have one yet, and perhaps some policies for holidays/absence and internet/telephone usage.

If you haven't given people written job descriptions, this could be helpful also, particularly if you do find yourself needing to terminate employment for some reason in the future.

Finally, I'd suggest formalising a probationary period for your new employee. This should be written in to their employment contract.

Hope this helps - let me know if you need more information.
Steve

[Anonymous]

Ian, any employee can join a trade union if they wish, but with five employees, the company isn't required to recognise the union. The requirement for this is at 21 or more, and dependant upon other (quite complex) criteria.

It would be helpful to clarify this in the contract of employment.

[Ozzy]

Going back to the company pension mentioned earlier, I looked into this a couple of years ago and found the Virgin one easy to manage and gave the staff their own online access to their own pension account with options to top up whenever they wanted. Financially though I don't know how it will perform against other providers.
My IFA is recommending Scottish Widows as a high performer at the moment.

[gary]

Aren't you required to provide some form of stakeholder pensions when you reach 5 employees? Might be worth having a chat with Business Link as they can assign someone to help you through all of this.

[Alpha]

Got here a bit late an most things have been covered.

With regard to the pension side of things you are obliged to offer all your employees access to a pension scheme. You are not required to contribute to it however.

[Ozzy]

The Stakeholder one is what I meant ealier by the Virgin one.