Don’t be a good employer, be a great one: Pre-employment

Before you consider becoming an employer by hiring staff, you need to consider what your need actually is.

If you answer ‘yes’ to most of the following questions, then you’re in a good position to hire staff:

• Are you missing out on potential business because you’re too busy?
• Is stress causing you to spend most of your days feeling harassed and pressured? Is work eating into your family time?
• Could the business grow more successfully if you spent more time doing what you do best instead of unrelated tasks?
• Could you maximise your time on things that generate the most revenue if you had someone doing less profitable tasks?

You don’t want to deny your business the chance to grow by hesitating to hire because you’re worried about whether you’ll be able to find the right person.

You also don’t want to miss out because you’re worried about the extra compliance which comes with being an employer.

So, what do you need to do to become not just an employer, but an employer of choice?

Is your business attractive to potential employees?

Potential employees will sell themselves to you, but to attract the right kind of people you need to sell your business to them too.

Apart from competitive remunerations packages, make sure you leverage other key benefits your business has:

• Customer satisfaction – promote your commitment to providing an excellent customer experience with testimonials on your website.
• Environment – if you’re able to offer a relaxed, flexible environment then highlight this. People with excellent skills and experience may be looking to avoid a pressure-cooker workplace and/or the ability to work from home.
• Quality products and service – focus on your commitment to providing the best offering you can, thereby demonstrating your responsibility and dedication.
• Provide incentives – a rewards program is a great way to attract candidates. Incentives can be just as tempting as what you’ll be paying them.

What kind of employee is best for you?

Think about the role that they’ll be filling, such as what skills they’ll need, how many hours a week you’ll need them, how much responsibility they’ll have and what you’ll be paying them.

You’ll also need to decide what type of employment agreement to offer.

The most common types of employment agreements are:

• Permanent – can be full time or part time, but without a finish date
• Fixed Term –work well for projects
• Casual – perfect for some industries where there are times that you need an extra set of hands on deck

How to recruit right

Depending on what your business does, there are several ways to source new employees.

It could be that you can find the right person simply through word-of-mouth, i.e. a recommendation from friends or family.

However most commonly, candidates are found via advertising.

You can do this yourself through newspapers, internet job sites such as Seek and Trade Me Jobs, as well as Work & Income New Zealand (WINZ).

Alternatively, employment agencies are another option.

They charge for their services, which is something you need to weigh up.

Agencies will put together attractive job descriptions and they take the hassle out of sifting through dozens of applications, preparing a longlist of candidates and completing initial screening for suitability against your person specification.

How to become an employer

Register as an employer with the IRD 

It’s easy to do and only takes a few minutes on the IRD website. You’ll need a company IRD number, but you can use your personal IRD number if you’re not a registered company.

• Visit www.ird.govt.nz, type “register as an employer” in the search box at the top
• Click on “Get it done online” on the right
• Click on “Employers (payroll)”
• Click on “Register as an employer” and follow the prompts
• IRD will send you a confirmation email that you must reply to

Choose a great payroll system

It’s a great idea to get payroll software which makes it easy from the start, and it doesn’t need to be expensive.

If you want some advice on this, give MYOB a call on 0800 60 69 62.

We have a solution no matter what your size or budget. We’ll listen to what you need and recommend a system that will suit you and your business needs.

Set up a file

It’s important to find a way to keep documentation attached to each employee in the one place.

You can start with a simple manila folder to keep all documentation in one place including employee contract, tax declaration (IR330) form, KiwiSaver (ks2 or ks10) forms.

However, MYOB payroll software can help make this easier by storing this information electronically.

For more information download the full essential guide to being a great employer