How to employ people in the UK?

So you're looking to bring on the first team member for your founding team. Here are the steps that you need to take:

Step 1. Register for PAYE

Ensure that you have registered with HMRC for PAYE. We have put together a guide on how to do this here. This process can take several weeks, so start the clock on this early. If you need to pay anyone before this registration comes through, check out this guide here.

Step 2. Get an employment contract

You will also want to have an employment contract to ensure that you own the Intellectual Property that someone creates at work and confirm details like notice periods, probationary periods and salary.

We are currently putting together some templates that you can use, but a modern employment contract usually has 2 or 3 components:
1) The employment contract itself
2) A privacy notice (covering the data that you, as the employer, will store on the employee) and perhaps
3) An opt-out letter from the maximum weekly working time (this is only if a worker may ever work more than 48 hours in a week).

Step 3. Create an auto-enrolment pension scheme

If you are employing anyone in the UK, offering an auto-enrolment pension scheme is mandatory. All employees can choose to opt out of this scheme, but you must offer a scheme. We can help set one up for you if you would like. Feel free to get in touch here.

Step 4. Make your declaration of compliance with the Pensions Regulator

Once you have created your auto-enrolment scheme, you need to let the Pensions Regulator know that you comply with the requirements for you as an employer. Below is a step-by-step guide on how to do this.

• Step 1: Visit the Pensions Regulator's website here.
• Step 2: You can do the process as a guest, but creating an account is probably most prudent.
• Step 3: Input your PAYE reference, and then you can either find your letter code in the post (or if you've lost this, you can re-generate your code here).
• Step 4: You must start your declaration, fill in your Relationship to the Employer (usually a Director), and re-input your PAYE details. Most people at this stage of a business only have one payroll.
• Step 5: You must input your pension & auto-enrolment duties. The employer's start date is when you begin employing people using PAYE, but you are allowed to postpone by up to 3 months (which leads to a postponement date, which can be 3 months after). Usually, to the question 'Were any staff put into an auto-enrolment pension scheme?' you will answer Yes and input your Pension Scheme name & number. Then, input the staff at the different stages of auto-enrolment on the platform's request date.