One of the barriers to ecommerce growth, and indeed SME expansion in general, is the psychological rubicon that you need to cross when it comes to employing people. Sometimes the ambition to grow is there, and indeed the opportunity, but the practicalities and new processes you have implement, as well as the various new areas of business to become expert in, sometimes don’t really make the game worth the candle.
It’s not just tax and payroll, but also things like employment law and HR activities that can be particularly daunting. What do you do with underperforming staff? How do you deal with a necessary redundancy? You can find yourself in a legal minefield.
Thats why it’s interesting to note that the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has expanded the services it offers members lately to include HR support. And not only a selection of help pages and downloads that cover the main issues and problems you might likely encounter but they’ve also included special insurance that can help you with costs in the case of a tribunal, as well as 24/7 HR hotline where they say you can ask even the ‘smallest question’.
Some of the topics they are willing to address include:
– Contracts of employment and zero hour contracts
– Dismissals and letting go of short term staff
– Disciplinary procedures/issues
– Grievances and how to resolve them
– Terms and conditions of employment
– Employee confidentiality clauses
– Employee maternity, paternity and adoptive leave procedure
These new HR services come of top of the fairly comprehensive things that they already offer. But what does it cost? The subscription fee to the FSB varies depending on the size of your business and you can calculate what fee you would pay here. It basically depends on the number of employees you have and the package you select.
