Note this guidance is UK specific and links to UK law/guidelines!

So… (hopefully) with the help of Coffee Jobs Board, you’ve found your first (or a new) employee!

What’s Next?

Other than making sure they’re fully trained on all your operations and they start getting to know your customers, you need to provide them with a Written Statement, covering the main terms of their employment.

Legally speaking, you need to provide your new employee with a Written Statement of Employment if their employment lasts a month or more. You need to provide it within two months of the start of their employment.

Basic details you must include within the Written Statement (AKA the Principal Statement)

• The name and address of your business
• The employee’s name
• The employee’s job title or a description of their role
• The employee’s employment start date (if a previous job with you counts towards a period of continuous employment, you need to include the date that period started too)
• How much and how often the employee will get paid (make sure your pay rates comply with National Minimum or Living Wage rules)
• Hours of work (and if they will have to work Sundays, nights or overtime). In coffee shops, hours often change on a weekly basis, so it may be best to give a total number of weekly hours and detail that shifts may be scheduled between certain hours on certain days (and detail when the rota will be given). The Working Time Regulations prevent staff from working excessive hours, and there are rules around allowing adequate rest/break time – so have a read before writing this section
• Holiday entitlement (and whether that includes bank holidays). For full time staff, you must give at least 20 days’ holiday per year plus 8 bank holidays. You can ask staff members to work bank holidays, but you must give them another day off in exchange
• Where an employee will be working and whether they might have to relocate
• The addresses of other workplaces, if an employee is required to work at a number of different sites

As well as the Principal Statement, a Written Statement must also contain information about:

• Notice periods (i.e. how much notice you’ll give them, and how much notice they’ll need to give you) to terminate their employment
• If the job is temporary or fixed term, how long it is expected to last/the proposed end date
• Info about pensions (you need to automatically enrol most employees into a pension scheme and make contributions)
• Details about where to find more info on certain procedures or policies: sick pay and leave, making a compliant, grievances, disciplinaries
• Details of any collective agreements (only applicable for unionised businesses)

If you are a UK business, ACAS has produced a template to help you get started with this process - you can download a DOC file here.

If you have any other HR/hiring questions/queries please feel free to drop us a note via [email protected]!