In the UK, it is not a statutory requirement for businesses to have an HR department, meaning you do not need a dedicated HR team to hire new people, especially when you’re starting out. Attracting and hiring the right people is a major challenge for many businesses, but by using the right strategies, tools, and a team-based approach, you can take on this task.
In this guide, we’ve put together helpful ways to hire new people without an HR team.
Why You Don’t Need an HR Team
Many core HR responsibilities, such as recruiting, onboarding, and managing basic employee records, can all be handled by business owners or line managers with the support of digital tools and external advice. By using what is out there, your business remains compliant while keeping costs low. Allowing you to focus on growth while still building a strong and capable workforce.
Define Your Hiring Needs
The first part to hiring is to be clear on what you need as a business. You need to define the role and skills required for your next potential employee. Start by making a list of core duties, qualifications and certain areas you are looking to tick with hiring a new person. Aligning the role with your business strategy ensures that the new hire contributes directly to your growth objectives.
Writing a Job Description
A strong job description that reflects the duties, responsibilities, and expectations for the role, along with the benefits of joining your business, will attract the right candidates. By setting out these details from the beginning, you create transparency for both sides, reduce the risk of misunderstandings later on, and lay the foundations for a more successful recruitment process.
Where to Find Candidates
Post your job advert out there on multiple platforms, such as social media and recruitment sites like Indeed or Totaljobs, which are popular in the UK. There are many free or affordable hiring channels to help you reach a wide group of potential employees. Also, your current employees can be some of your best recruiters, often leading to faster, higher-quality hires.
The Interview Process
It’s key to plan your interviews so you are able to find the best candidate for the role while also creating a positive impression of the business. You can include behavioural questions with skill assessments to evaluate candidates’ ability to do the job.
Before the interview takes place, you should prepare by reviewing applications carefully and start to have your core questions for each candidate to answer. During the interview, it is important to create a professional but welcoming environment. Candidates should be encouraged to talk about their experience, skills, and approach to work.
Employers should also use the interview as an opportunity to explain the role in more detail, outline expectations, and describe the company culture and working environment. This allows candidates to make an informed decision.
Making an offer
Once you have found the right person for the job, it’s time to make a timely and clear offer. This can be made verbally or in writing. The offer should clearly set out the key terms of employment, including the job title, start date, working hours, salary, and any benefits or incentives. Once the candidate has accepted the offer, a written contract of employment should be issued.
Onboarding and Support
One of the final steps is making sure you have an effective onboarding process to help new employees settle into their role quickly and feel confident in their responsibilities.
A structured onboarding process should include an introduction to the business, an overview of team roles, and clear guidance on day-to-day tasks and expectations. Alongside the onboarding, ongoing support is just as important to make sure the employee can get any questions answered, address any concerns and provide feedback.
How Premier Legal Can Help
Having no HR team shouldn’t stop your business from recruiting great people. With the right strategies, tools, and support, employers can manage recruitment effectively and compliantly without a dedicated HR department. Whether you’re looking for one-off advice or ongoing HR support, Premier Legal is here to help you create the perfect workforce. Contact us today.
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Author
sarahrobinson@premier-legal.co.uk
Sarah Robinson is the Managing Partner and has specialised exclusively in employment law since qualifying as a solicitor in 1996.
Sarah has considerable experience of representing clients in many different industry sectors including insurance and financial services, corporate finance, technology, legal services, automotive, hotel and catering and media as well as the public sector.
Areas of particular interest include restrictive covenants, TUPE and advising in relation to discrimination.