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  • Advisory handbook - Discipline and grievances at work (section 2 of 2)
  • Advisory handbook - Employing people: a handbook for small firms
  • Advisory handbook - Employing people: a handbook for small firms (section 2 of 2)
  • Advice leaflet - Age and the workplace: Putting the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 into practice
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Advisory handbook - Employing people: a handbook for small firms

Booklet summary

Employing people seems a perfectly straightforward matter: hire them, then set them to work. Many small firms consider that they have insufficient time or resources to devote to employment issues. But as this guide shows, sensible employment practices can help small firms to be more effective, more profitable, to grow and to create more jobs. Employees are most firms' greatest asset so it is worth spending some time and effort over them.

Employing people can, if handled badly, cost the employer time, money or lost profitability through:

• Recruiting unsuitable employees
• Inadequate training
• Low morale and motivation
• High absence levels and turnover of employees
• Ineffective management and supervision
• Too many dismissals

These problems can be overcome by a small investment of time and resources. Small firms can have a number of 'natural' advantages:

• Close personal relationships between employer and employee
• An understanding of individual employees' problems resulting from regular face-to-face contact
• Being able to act and react quickly to events

We hope to build on these benefits by showing how good employment practices can help:

• Small firms to anticipate employment problems and so improve managing the business
• Employees to know where they stand – what they can and cannot do, what they can expect from their employer and what their employer can expect from them

This handbook has been written to assist the busy small firm, deal with the most important employment areas and operate simple but effective employment practices.

The handbook is available to download from the 'Download PDF' link below. Alternatively, hard copies are available to order from our publications section of the site.

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