How to Recruit the Right Staff for your Coffee Shop

Opening a coffee shop will require that you become an employer for the first time. If you take careful steps to put in place recruitment systems and also ensure you're complying with all the employment regulations, hiring members of staff can be a rewarding experience.

The employment regulations should be your first port-of-call as you set-up your coffee shop. The HMRC website is packed with information, but as a new employer it's good idea to read 'Thinking of employing someone?' from the HMRC website. The HMRC also have a good overview of the process you'll have to go through when hiring people for your new coffee shop.

Employment Law For Employers

Becoming an employer will mean that you have to take on a new group of responsibilities to not only comply with employment law, but also to ensure you hire the right people for your business. The key pieces of employment law you must be aware of include:

Pay and tax
As an employer you must observe the minimum wage regulations that are now part of UK employment law. All business owners must also check that the people they employ have a legal right to work in the UK. If they do not, and you still employ them you could be fined £5,000.

You also have responsibility for collecting tax and National Insurance contributions from your staff. Help and advice on how to set-up employee pay and national insurance collections can be found on the HMRC website.

Working conditions
As well as the minimum wage, the UK also observes the Work Time Directive that means your employees can't work more than 48 hours a week. There are exceptions, so check with your legal advisor if your business will have unusual working hours.

Health and safety
As you will be employing people you have to ensure they are working in a safe environment. There is a wide-range of safety conditions your business must adhere to that will ensure it is operating legally.

Discrimination
As an employer it's your responsibility to ensure your recruitment procedure is fair and does not discriminate against any individuals or groups of potential employees. Two of the most common forms of discrimination are based on religion and sexual orientation.

Taking on Staff

There are a number of key components when hiring people for your business. Use the checklist below to develop your own recruitment procedure:

1: Type of employment
You have a number of options that include: permanent employees, temporary staff, fixed-term contracts and casual staff (sometimes called zero-hours contracts). Think about what form of employees you need as your business may need a mixture.

2: Job description
Defining your vacancy accurately is very important so you attract the people with the skillset you need. There is no legal requirement to produce a job description, but you'll find that the more detailed this is, the easier it will be to find and recruit your staff.

3: Advertising and agencies
You have a number of options when it comes to publicising your need for staff. Your local press and radio can be very useful, but you have a number of other options that include: Job Centres, recruitment agencies (ideal if you have a special need as many specialise in certain industries), colleges and university noticeboards and word of mouth.

4: Drawing up a shortlist
From the applications that you receive it's now time to draw up a shortlist. Look at how much time you have for interviews, as this will determine how many people you can have on your shortlist. Look closely at how the applicants match your job description. Remember the discrimination laws when you're compiling your shortlist.

5: Interviewing
Research has indicated that owner/managers of small enterprises tend to have poor interview technique that can lead to the wrong people being hired for vacant posts. If you do feel that you don't have the required skills now is the time to get some training as employing the wrong person can be a costly mistake.

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