Employing staff has its own rules and regulations. We have contracting In and contract OUT. We have temporary workers to charity workers. Hiring is a phrase we prefer to use as hiring covers many areas and types of people the UK organisation engages with.

G4I has put together a process to best explain compliance areas where it covers engaging workers.

Recruitment can be costly, time-consuming and you must follow good HR practices. We will now explain how best to run a complete recruitment process ensuring you are fully compliant. Compliance in the work force is a legal requirement and failing to have this in place, could cost you civil penalties and even a custodial sentence plus bad publicity. LET US AVOID THIS!

A recruitment process starts from the moment you advertise the job vacancy. Advertising a job vacancy can be internally on the employers notice board or advertised in a form of media such as the Internet, social media site or newspaper article.

We listed below our 10-step guide to help you understand the steps you may have to take to avoid compliance issues:

When an ‘applicant' or ‘internal member of staff’ applies to the organisation's job vacancy, they should follow a certain process to avoid issues which could lead to discrimination and Home Office non-compliance if the job advertisement is related to a Tier 2 or Tier 5 visa application.

Regardless who applies to the organisation's job advert, they should send the applicant a notification (email or SMS) to acknowledge their interest in the job vacancy.

When the organisation has decided which applicants they want to interview, some organisations will invite the applicants to their office. Doing this initial process can be very time-consuming, costly in your time and from our research, many people interviewed did not match up to their CVs. Regardless which option you take to do your interviewing, the same process should follow on how you capture and log people ‘personal information’.

Online | Telephone | Webcam | Face-to-Face

Online interview is becoming more of a trend as organisations are looking at ways to reduce the hiring costs. The organisation might prefer to carry out a telephone or webcam interview. Some organisations just skip this and invite the applicant in for a face-to-face interview. You must record how the interview went, discussion points, what was promised and action points.

Did you know, if an applicant felt they were being discriminated against, they can go to ACAS and put in a discrimination complaint against your organisation; you could end up in an employment tribunal.

See Shortlisting section process for Face-to-Face interviewing.

Before any person can be offered a job, the organisation must carry out a ‘Right to Work’ check first.

If the organisation is thinking of hiring an applicant, they must first verify if that applicant needs permission to work in the UK. If the applicant already holds a UK visa, is it:

• Valid visa and leave still remaining
  
• Visa permits work with the new organisation without Home Office permission
  
• If Home Office permission is permitted, can the applicant visa permit UK switching.
  
• If the applicant is in the UK and cannot switch whilst in the UK or change employers from their Tier to the same Tier for another organisation, they must leave the UK to apply for an entry visa.

Employment cannot commence until a Right to work is verified first.

The organisation should never guarantee or promise an applicant a job until a full right to work check has been carried out. If the organisation wants to offer a job to an applicant to secure their services, but have not yet done a right to work check, they should provide the applicant a ‘Letter of intent’, add a clause to say, a right to work check must be first carried out and only then can we provide you with a formal ‘offer of employment’. This will protect your business.

Immigration Status | Licences | Accreditations | Insurance.

Once the organisation has clarified the right to work status, the applicant can be shortlisted.

Once an applicant is shortlisted, interview notes should be logged and notes added as to why shortlisted.

When the organisation invites a candidate to a face-to-face interview, ask the applicant to bring in their original right to work evidence to the interview. Right to work evidence will depend on their job role, but certain documents must be provided such as travel ID or similar document.

Some interviews are done in one or multiple stages, this all depends on the type of role.

When the organisation take copies of right to work evidence, they must do the following:

Now file the evidence whether as a hard copy or as an electronic file.

Prior to offering the applicant an offer of employment, has the organisation done the following checks:

Added interview notes for all applicants spoken to who applied for the job.

Only offer a 'Contract of Service' (employment) if the applicant can work for your organisation.

The employment law states employees are entitled to a number of documents which could include from this list: Statement of main terms of employment (Permanent or Temporary) | Employee Handbook Form for Existing Employees | Restrictive Covenant | Deductions from Pay | 48 Hour Opt Out | Action Plan Form | Action Plan Letter Form | Action Plan Monitoring Form | Job Task Performance Table Form | Notes and forms for appraisers | Notes and forms for employees | Preparation for Appraisal Form | Performance Appraisal Form | Change of Personal Details | Staff Appraisal Scheme | Customer Complaint Form | Disciplinary Record – Form | Display Screen Equipment Form | Employee HS Induction Training Record | Equal Opportunity Monitoring Form | Exit interview | Flexi-time Request Form | Health Questionnaire Holding Letter | Holiday Request Form (Hours) | Holiday Request Form (Days) | Holiday Request Form (Shifts) | Interview Rating Form | Person Specification Preparation Form | Personal Details Form | Pool Vehicle Log Form | Reference Letter | Rejection Letter | Return to work interview Form | Job Descriptions | Short Listing Form.

It is essential that any documents the organisation has on an employee is filed correctly. Documents that should be filed include:

An employee has the right to know what documents/data the organisation holds on them. Data is normally stored manually or electronically. Employees’ personal data should be kept safe, secure and up to date by the organisation at all times. Below is the type of data the employer should keep about their employees:

Other details that should keep kept include:

It is essential the organisation tracks all essential data/documents held on an employee. Depending on the employee, if under immigration control, the following could be filed and where documents have expiry dates, these are tracked. Types of documents include:

When a member of staff leaves their employment, employees are either:

Dismissal is when you end an employee’s contract. When dismissing staff, you must do it fairly and log all information. If the UK organisation dismissed a Tier 2 or Tier 5 worker, they have 10 working days to login to their SMS and report it to the Home Office.

There are several types of dismissal:

A UK organisation cannot refuse to accept an employee's resignation. They must follow certain procedures. When a member of staff resigns the UK organisation must:

Note: An employee decision to retire is a form of resignation.

Verbal resignations given in the heat of the moment could lead to claims of unfair dismissal - always ask for resignations to be given in writing.

Redundancy is when the UK organisation dismisses an employee because they no longer need anyone to do their job. This might be because the business is:

For a redundancy to be genuine, the UK organisation must demonstrate that the employee’s job will no longer exist.

Redundancies can be compulsory or non-compulsory. If the UK organisation do have to make redundancies, they can get help from Jobcentre Plus.

Employee rights - Employees have certain rights and may be entitled to redundancy pay if they’re made redundant.

Regardless how the employee leaves their job, log as much information as possible. Information should be how they left their employment, hand over been correctly done, left on good note, reasons for leaving, log performance for future references and finally, log if any holiday pay and other benefits should be paid to the employee.