Onboarding Employees

Whether you are thinking of hiring your first employee – or already engrossed in human resources, getting the basics right and knowing you are ticking the right boxes will give you peace of mind. Having a structured process for your new employees is a great habit to get into.

There are many moving parts when it comes to HR, some of which are ‘make or break’ when it comes to the team, individual members and their performance. As the owner, you are responsible for:

• Figuring out the resource you need

• Finding the person

• Choosing the right person

• Induction and onboarding

• Training

• Managing Performance

• Dealing with issues

You’re probably doing this while juggling sales, customer needs, finances, and operational tasks. It's overwhelming.

As an employer you will need to be across these things.

Understand the law

There are laws in place to give employees rights in the workplace. By law, employers are required to follow certain methods and processes in relation to wages, payslips, leave, flexibility and terminating employment.

You also need to understand how to manage PAYG (pay as you go) tax, superannuation contributions and workplace health and safety.

Each employee you hire must be provided with a Fair Work Information Statement and if casual or a contractor an additional information statement, click here to learn more about these statements. These documents provides the employee information about their entitlements at work.   Be familar with the contents of these documents, so that you can ensure you have processes and systems in place to manage the different components.

Understand if your industry or occupation falls under a modern award

A modern award will cover things like minimum wages, allowances, breaks, rosters, hours of work and overtime.  Do you know if your business or the roles in your business fall under an award.   

If you have an enterprise agreement, you as the company have negotiated with your employee group around work conditions and wages and this is lodged with the Fair Work Commission. Therefore, this would apply instead of a modern award.

You can search for modern awards that may apply to your business by going to www.fairwork.gov.au/awards.

There will be a group of employees who are considered free of any agreement or award. These employees are still entitled to the national minimum wage and National Employment Standards.

New Starter Paperwork

The ideal new starter pack for your employee would include:

1.       Fair Work Information Statements

2.       Super Choice form (so they can nominate their super fund)

3.       Personal Details form so that you collect their name and address, emergency contact, their tax file no, date of birth and bank details etc.

4.       Tax Declaration Form to lodge with the ATO

5.       Position Description so the employee understands the expectations and measures of the role

6.       A cheat sheet of the key things they need to know in their first week

Understand taxation and superannuation obligations

Ensure that you understand your taxation and superannuation obligation that includes:

• Withholding tax on behalf of your employee and making payments to the tax office regularly

• Paying Superannuation on behalf of the employee

• Depending on your total wages, you may also need to pay payroll tax.

Chat with your bookkeeper and/or accountant about the above and ensure your payroll and ATO reporting processes are set up correctly to administer these things.

Understand your workplace health and safety obligations

Make sure you have worker’s compensation insurance (even if you only have one employee). Each state in Australia has an organisation who administers workers compensation insurance. Wherever your employee usually works will determine where you need to take out the insurance. If you have employees in different states, you will need to take out cover in the state where they mostly work. What you pay in workers compensation is  based on total wages.  See links below to state organisations;

ACT: worksafe.act.gov.au

NSW: workcover.nsw.gov.au

NT: worksafe.nt.gov.au

QLD: workcoverqld.com.au

SA: workcover.com

TAS: workcover.tas.gov.au

VIC: worksafe.vic.gov.au

WA: workcover.wa.gov.au

As an employer, you have an obligation to provide a safe working environment and like workers compensation, the laws may differ, depending on where you are based. Engaging a WHS safety consultant can assist you in understanding your obligations and an effective way to ensure you get this right. In low-risk environments, it may be as simple as having a small collection of policies and processes, and checklists. 

Prepare an induction plan and prioritise

Take the time to prepare an induction plan and prioritise, so that you can spread things over the first day, week and months.  Include things like:

• Business overview and sharing of the vision and goals

• Overview of WHS and safety procedures including evacuation and first aid procedures (first 24 hours)

• Tour of the facilities and intros to all the relevant people (maybe organise lunch in the first week)

• Workstation allocation and ergonomics

• Policies and Procedures (cover off the core stuff in the first week; things like access, technology and social media, hours of work and lunch breaks, payroll, dress code, bullying and harassment, code of conduct for example)

• Training to enable them to hit the ground running

• Regular check-ins along the way, particularly in the first three months.

• Allocating a buddy or go to with questions 

• Social Activities

• Info on your culture and people

• Have a process for probation review (before probation ends)

Post Probation

A process after probation will ensure you can give your employees the best chance of success. These things could include:

• Regular catch ups (monthly or quarterly perhaps depending on the role)  where both you and them have a discussion about their role and you provide feedback

• Mentoring

• Team meetings

• Social activities

• Health and Wellness check-ins

Look to introducing a more formal goal-setting process  that allows the employee to set measures that are aligned specifically to their role and the business goals.

Wrapping up

The 3-6 months of an employee’s experience at your organisation, are the most important. If your employee is made to feel welcome, they are clear on the expectations  and you have ticked the boxes on compliance, you are more likely to have a great journey as an employer and provide a great working environment for your employee.