How many employees do you have?
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Employers have an increasingly complex set of employment obligations that lets face it confuse the hell out of us.
Even if you’re a Human Resources expert there are times you have to take time to analyse the multi-faceted data that qualifies an individual as an employee and then qualify how the employer manages them.
It is true to say that only a few years ago most people were employees. However today there are employees, consultants, contractors, portfolio careers, self-employed, temps, zero hours, fixed termer, agency, hybrid, piece work, apprenticeships, freelancers, interns, on-call, and volunteer. I have no doubt there are more.
If you’re an employer and are utilising some of these or in fact all of these then well done because they all have a part to play in the needs of a business.
Unfortunately the problem is that their use in business is not fully understood and the wrong option is used for the wrong reason leading to unnecessary risk for the employer.
Let’s take self-employment as an example; previously individuals who were self-employed were wholly responsible for their own business including financial undertakings such as payment of their own income tax. A business using them had limited risk as the onus was on the self-employed individual.
That is no longer the case. The onus is now equal if not more so with the user – you their customer. Many self-employed individuals do not follow or don’t understand what they have to do to actually be legitimately self-employed.
A business must understand how they engage anyone who does work for them in order to be safe and they need to be able to prove it. The worker needs to understand what they will be doing, what is expected of them and what the terms are. A business cannot do that unless they have checked and can approve the workers’ status.
Nasty surprises often show up in times of change. For example; where there is a decreased need for work it’s common to reduce your workers before letting employees go. Suddenly workers count themselves as employees who would require consultation and redundancy payments. Usually this happens as they really were not legitimately self-employed, were dependent on the business and the business has no evidence to prove otherwise. So you end up with more employees than you think.
Annoyingly checking a worker’s status is not simple. There are multiple agencies that have input into what qualifies someone as your employee. How ever to not qualify the status presents a significant risk to a business who can legally be held accountable for these non-employee transgressions.
So I ask you again how many employees do you really have?
Guest Writer
Our Guest Writer – Sharon Hadley, Virtual Assistant
When the business is busy, but the owner is buried
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Client L came to me doing everything manually. Bookings, payments, follow-up emails, all handled by hand, all sitting in her head. There was no shortage of clients. There was a shortage of hours, and the admin was quietly eating them.
We started with an Operations Untangled session. Ninety minutes to map out how her business was actually running, where the friction was, and what needed fixing first. What came out of it wasn’t a long list of problems. It was clarity. She could see exactly what was holding her back and in what order to tackle it.
From there, she moved onto Virtually Brilliant Funnels. Her bookings, payments, and email sequences now live in one place. She describes herself as more relaxed. Her Q2 focus is a keep-in-touch sequence for clients who book months ahead, work she never had the headspace to set up before.
That’s a fairly typical journey. But sometimes we go a layer deeper.
With Client E, we spent an hour looking at her enquiry process. The time she was spending handling each enquiry manually was costing her £108 in admin time. By mapping the process and introducing partial automation, keeping the personal touches she wanted while removing the repetitive steps, we brought that down by around 35 minutes per enquiry.
That’s what Operations Untangled Mapped does. It takes one process, maps it in full, and shows you exactly what your current approach is costing you in time and money and what a smarter version could save.
If your business is busy but you’re still buried, it might be time to look at how it’s actually running.
Book a free 15-minute call to see how I can help.
Have you considered GIG workers for your business?
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Some businesses are thriving after embracing the GIG economy when you think of Uber and AIRBNB as examples.
The gig economy is a labour market characterised by short-term, flexible, and freelance contracts rather than permanent employment. Gig workers, typically operate through digital platforms (apps or websites) as independent contractors to provide services like UBER and AIRBNB, food delivery, or specialised consulting across a lot of different industries, Todays workers are opting to work for themselves and take on gigs with companies rather than tying themselves down to full-time jobs.
With a lack of talent out there and a government whose policies are making employers decrease their hiring then maybe incorporating gig workers into your business may be an option.
When you think about it its often the brightest and best experienced employees that leave and become self employed so it stands to reason that gig workers will be amongst the best talent available.
Workplace flexibility is no longer a nice to have because these days it’s an essential for most workers today. Hence the growing numbers of employees becoming gig workers in the UK.
The gig economy is not slowing down it is estimated to contribute around £25 billion in Gross Value Added to the UK economy and expected to grow to £60 billion in the next five years. These numbers mean no business can ignore the gig economy, and companies that can embrace it will be in the best position to capture top talent and thrive.
If you already have gig workers in your business you are already ahead of the curve but you can still benefit from doing more. Look at your business and identify roles that could adapt to the gig economy. What service or responsibilities can you bring into your business on a contract or freelance basis? You could focus on vacant or soon-to-be-vacant positions if you’re struggling.
Independent workers like freelancers and consultants tend to have better engagement, innovation, satisfaction, and pride than employees. However, you have to balance that and manage their commitments as gig workers typically aren’t as committed to the companies they work for. Gig workers usually work for five to ten different employers and communicate with maybe one or two people in each employer so integrating your gig workers is something you need to work on.
How a worker is engaged and documented into your business and workforce is important so you shouldn’t be surprised to hear that HR needs to be involved in order to protect you and your business.
