Taking on first employee (casual basis) advice needed

[S90GAM]

Hi all, im looking for a bit of advice

I’m a self employed plumber and at the moment I am turning work down so I need to employ someone on an as and when required basis and could guarantee maybe 15 – 20hours a week, after say 2 months and I’ve booked bathroom jobs in, I can take them on full time but can’t commit full time as not got the work! It’s a catch 22 situation as I haven’t got the staff so can’t book the work in, and I can’t employ full time as haven’t enough work etc

Few questions

1) Would I need to offer a pension scheme? If so who is the best company to do this through? Been looking online and can’t find any

2) Where can I get a contract of employment?

3) Regarding job advert, what do I need to include and what I can’t include? Any websites or examples would be appreciated

4) Regarding wages, should I pay weekly, fortnightly, 4 weekly or monthly? I am thinking fortnightly but not sure, I’m looking at paying £12.50 an hour and 35p per mile petrol for them using own vehicle (once they are working full time will provide van)

5) Should I go LTD if im taking on staff? With regards to insurance, public liability insurance etc, would I have more protection should they do something wrong in a customers house and cause damage?

I know I need to register as an employer with HMRC, I have a book keeper at present that will do Payroll for £10 a month, which sounds a bit cheap?

What else do I need to do?

Thank you all in advance for any help you can provide and sorry if theses are simple questions but ive never had to do this before

 

[Newchodge]

You will need to offer a pension scheme eventually, but don't worry about that now.

You can offer a contract with a minimum number of hours each week, and a proviso that overtime may be available, paid at normal time.

The job advert should include what you are looking for in terms of experience and qualifications. It can't specify age, gender or any of the other protected characteristics.

Wages interval is for you to decide and agree with the employee. Fortnightly is quite unusual and may incur higher than normal payroll costs. Monthly is more normal these days.

It sounds as if you are looking for someone to work on your behalf, on their own. This may be dangerous - what is to stop them poaching your clients?

Ltd company makes no difference to liability - you will need public liability and employer liability insurance whichever way you go. The difference it makes is that, if you go bust you are not personally liable. there are tax advantages as well.

£10 for payroll is not particularly cheap, nor particularly expensive. Can your book-keeper keep you right about all the employment law stuff that is included in payroll these days, or would you be better off with an employment/payroll specialist?

If they are working 15 hours/week @12.50 per hour they will be getting £187.50 per week before tax an NI. They may not be able to afford to run their own van and 35p per mile is on the low side - HMRC recognise 45p per mile before they consider there is a taxable benefit.

 

[S90GAM]

Firstly thank you for a very speedy reponse

You say i will need to offer a pension scheme eventually, how soon? and when will i know i do, is that something hmrc will say?

20hour contract with overtime at normal rate it is then

Someone told me fortnighly was best so scrap that ideal, weekly or monthly was what i was initally looking at.

Indeed looking for someone to go out to pre booked jobs, this has been my main worry about them poaching cilents, can i put something into contract to cover me, something like "you cant work for any cilents of bla bla bla for 6 months after leaving employment? or is there a better way, loads of plumbing companies have employees so surely something can be done to cover me?

Will look into an employment/payroll specialist as would rather pay a little more and be covered.

Forget LTD then will stay sole trader for the moment then if it makes no different, not worth the extra paper work

Sorry meant to type 45p per mile, is there a way i could pay them £80 tax free a month towards wear and tear?

 

[Newchodge]

If you would like a quote for payroll/employment law, please feel free to drop me a PM.

The 45p includes wear and tear, so anything you give them above that would be subject to tax and NI.

You won't be likely to have to pay employers' NI, as there is a £2,000 employers' NI allowance.

The stuff on automatic enrolment for pensions is here: http://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/automatic-enrolment.aspx, although the site is down for maintenance at the moment!

 

[Anonymouse72]

think our start date for auto enrolment pensions is mid 2016, I'd imagine any new, small employer would be a similar timescale/later, so nothing to worry about as you start off. NEST has some info on pension schemes available.

welcome to the world of being an employer, good luck

 

[fairdealworld]

Start date for auto enrolment pensions varies according to the size of the business. Yours like mine is very small so it is not something you need to worry about immediately though once you've got an employee you need to start thinking about it and towards it.

Is the bookkeeper already doing work for you? If so adding on payroll at the amount you mention may not be unrealistic from their point of view. My accountant (i.e. his personal assistant!) does my payroll for not much more than that.

Just my opinion but if you are initially offering only a limited and unreliable amount of work then weekly payment may be particularly attractive to the employee. I ventured into having an apprentice for the first time 18 months ago. Obviously the apprentice didn't earn much at the start. I gave the apprentice the option of weekly or monthly payment and she was very definite about a preference for weekly payment. I can't see that it has added that much to my payroll expenses + there are some advantages for me in paying weekly rather than coming to a more substantial expense at the end of the month. If it did add that much to payroll expenses I'd want to know why. Your bookkeeper or accountant is only using a computerised system and adding a small amount of data each week which would take seconds...

 

[Onetouchteam]

Hi there

The gov.uk site has a lot of helpful information for new employers and it will answer many of your questions. I can't add the link unfortunately as this site annoyingly will not allow me to include links, but just go to gov.uk and click on the 'Employing People' link.

It also has a simple, template employment contract for small employers like yourself which you can download.

Hope that helps.

 

[PuddlePayroll]

We can provide a simple contract that covers the very basics as required by law free of charge. When you want to start introducing certain conditions and clauses is when the contract starts to get a bit more complex.

Pensions, it has already been mentioned above that you probably wont need to look yet, you can find your staging date online once you have a PAYE reference number http://www.puddlepayroll.co.uk/pension-auto-enrolment-know-staging-date/

A qualifying scheme can be setup within all the main players; Scottish Equable, Standard Life and so on. You may be worth looking at the government run scheme such as NEST which may offer a better annual management fee than the others.

We'd be delighted to help with any aspect of your payroll. Please get in touch if you'd like any help/support/quote!