What your business needs to know about hiring staff

Wondering if it’s time to hire? You may be at the point in your business where you feel you have no choice but to start hiring staff.

For instance, you may find long hours have become the norm, you are unable to keep up with your workload or your business is no longer able to grow. Hiring staff is not only vital to give you a helping hand but also in allowing your business to develop.

This article will provide you with advice on hiring staff and covers tips on the National Minimum Wage, dealing with Revenue and overseeing HR legislation.

Admin and software to consider when hiring staff

Hiring staff in order to grow your business is a big step and preparation is key to success in this area. If you are not already, you should be thinking about how you will organise the administration around the payment of staff and what payroll software to use.

You also need to consider the legislation that may be relevant to you as an employer. This may all seem a little daunting but taking on employees for the first time doesn’t have to be painful.

Dealing with staff pay

As you will be aware, staff pay needs to be considered carefully. Your new employees will generally be entitled to at least the National Minimum Wage, which, as of 1 January 2018, stands at €9.55 per hour. In 2019, this will increase to €9.80 per hour.

However, there are exceptions to this rule. The figures below apply for 2018.

Employees who are in their first year of employment since turning the age of 18 are entitled to €7.64 per hour, while employees who are in their second year of employment since turning 18 are entitled to €8.60 per hour.

Those who are under 18 years of age are entitled to €6.69 per hour.

Other costs to consider when hiring staff

On top of employee pay, you must also factor in other costs – both to you and the employee – such as Pay As You Earn (PAYE), Universal Social Charge (USC) and Pay Related Social Insurance (PRSI).

When paying your staff, you will be responsible for deducting the correct contributions and tax and then submitting this to the Revenue. This will mean keeping up to date on legislative changes.

Using a payroll solution

If your business is taking the leap to hiring staff for the first time, using payroll software will be beneficial. A payroll solution can take the hassle out of payroll and help you to stay on top of legislative changes.

By using cloud-based payroll software that automatically calculates payments and deductions such as PAYE and USC, you will pay your employees the right amounts.

If you’re using the right payroll solution, as legislation changes your software will automatically update.  It will also allow you to record details such as staff sick days, and maternity and paternity leave, while helping you to access all of your employee information in one online payroll system.

Payroll year end

Every payroll year end, you will be required to submit your payroll returns online to the Revenue. Your payroll solution will allow you to do this by recording all of the relevant information in the format required for submission.

HR legislation

It is important to aware of HR legislation when hiring new employees for the first time. If you do not ensure you have the right employment contracts, risk assessments and guidelines in place, you risk leaving yourself exposed to unwanted disputes.

Employment tribunals are expensive, time consuming and bad for your business all round. If you are unsure of any of the legislation, you can get advice from the Citizens Information website.

Have you any questions around the area of hiring staff? Or perhaps you have already taken the leap and have some tips to share with other businesses? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in February 2012 and has been updated for accuracy and relevance.