Hiring your first employee is an exciting time for a new business. It means that you’re doing well enough to start bringing more people on board and pushing the business forward.

However, if you’re not an experienced business leader and this is your first time running a company, hiring an employee is probably new territory for you.

The cost of employing somebody is high and you probably don’t have a huge amount of money to play with at this point so any mistakes could mean bad news for your business. You can vet potential and current employees by asking them to take behavioural assessments like DiSC to see what their work ethic is like. This can help you get a feel for how they are likely to fit in and operate while working. So if you’re about to hire new employees, make sure that you avoid these common mistakes and find your teams DiSC personalities.

Classifying Workers Incorrectly

In the past, classifying workers incorrectly wasn’t really a problem. You hired somebody and they were your employee, but these days it’s a little more complicated than that. The rise of freelance workers means that there are different classifications that you need to be aware of and classifying a worker incorrectly can lead to some serious legal issues.

Full-time employees have different rights to freelancers and if you mistakenly think that somebody is a freelancer when they’re actually considered an employee in the eyes of the law, you might not be fulfilling all of your obligations as an employer.

In some cases, it’s clear if somebody is a freelancer but sometimes, if they’re doing a lot of work for you on a regular basis, it might not be so clear cut and that’s when you’ve got to be careful.

If you’re unsure, it’s best to consult an employment law specialist and get their advice on the situation. If you find that you’re treating somebody as a freelancer but they actually qualify as a full-time employee, you may be breaking the law and it’s not worth taking that risk.

Not Paying Enough

When you’re a new business, you’re not going to pay the most competitive salary out there, but a lot of people struggle to fill positions because they simply aren’t paying enough. Even if they can find candidates, they don’t stay for long because they get better offers from elsewhere.

Knowing how much to pay your employees is tough but if you’re offering way lower than any other company is offering for a similar position, you’ll only attract the worst candidates and you’ll have a big problem with excessive staff turnover.

Try to find a middle ground and pay a competitive salary but don’t offer more than you can realistically afford to pay somebody. If it’s within your means, you should try to offer some benefits as well because that will help you to attract more experienced candidates.

Being Too Vague In The Employment Contract

Employment contracts are there to protect employees but they’re also there to protect you as well. If you’re too vague in the employment contract when it comes to things like notice periods, termination clauses, and vacation allowances, you could run into trouble.

If there isn’t a clear notice period in the contract, for example, employees could easily leave without any notice and leave you in a difficult position. A lack of clear guidelines on termination might make it a lot harder for you to get rid of a bad employee.

Whenever you take somebody on, make sure that you write an airtight employee contract and if you’re having trouble, seek legal advice to make sure that you haven’t missed anything important out.

Writing Bad Job Adverts

Hiring is always a long process and you’ll have to spend some time screening candidates and finding the most qualified and experienced people to invite for an interview. But you make the whole process a lot harder for yourself if you write a bad job advert.

If you’re not clear about exactly what you’re looking for, you’ll end up with lots of applications from people that just aren’t right for the job. When you’re writing a job advert, you need to include a detailed outline of what the daily duties are and what experience you’re looking for.

You also need to write a bit about the company and its values because it’s not just about qualifications and experience, you need to find candidates that are a good fit for the company culture as well.

Discrimination laws need to be considered when writing job adverts as well. Even if you’re not intentionally trying to exclude certain groups, you could come under fire if you phrase things badly and they appear discriminatory.

Make sure that you proofread job adverts properly before they go out to avoid any problems.

If you can avoid these common mistakes, you can be sure that you’re hiring the right employees and you don’t run into any legal issues.