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Human Resources, Employment Law and Recruitment

Human Resources refer to the labour, physical and mental abilities that the people in your organisation contribute to producing the goods and services of your business.

Many small businesses operate with no employees.  One person handles the whole business with perhaps occasional help from family or friends.  Making the leap to hiring someone to help is a big one because all of a sudden you need to worry about payroll, benefits, taxation and what seems like a myriad of other details. And, this does not even take into consideration the host of problems that can arise from personality conflicts and loss-of-control of all the processes in running your business.

Ireland has a very large proportion of small indigenous companies, in fact 97% of all services companies are classified as small (i.e. less than 50 employees), however having best practice HR policies can make an incredible difference to the company.

Total Labour Market Profile (Central Statistics Office Data)

  • Small workplaces accounted for almost 56% of the workforce (1,175,800). Of these, 839,300 were employees, 216,600 were self-employed and another 107,900 were self-employed with paid employees. The figures included farming and the public sector, as well as business sectors.
  • Almost 58% of females employed in small workplaces were in low skilled non-manual or elementary occupations compared with just over 22% of males.
  • Of the 316,300 non-Irish Nationals that were in employment in the second quarter of 2007, almost half (47.4%) worked in small enterprises.

 

Recruitment

The first impression a potential new employee gets is during the recruitment phase where the business gets to showcase not only its product or service range but also its level of professionalism and approach.  Remember your best asset is your team – it is incredibly important to hire the highest caliber employee, one who will be loyal, committed, and capable, will fit in with other team members and believes in the company.  Recruitment procedures can take many forms including the use of external assistance such as head hunters, recruitment agencies, HR professionals, direct advertising, and referrals and so on.  Finally the recruitment aspect of the HR function does not only include the hiring of staff, but all the activities around that from the job specification to the advertising all the way to the offer of employment and the contract of employment and company policies and procedures.

Fit Business have over 20 years expertise in HR and recruitment, we can set up all your HR documentation and walk you through your recruitment process to ensure you are hiring the best every time.

Employment Law

Employment Law in Ireland has changed substantially in the last ten years.  Fit Business are extremely well read in this area and can come to the aid of businesses who find themselves in a quandary, however below gives the links to the major employment legislation changes of the last ten years.    These publications maybe purchased, however one can also do a quick search to find the topic of interest.

The following is a summary of the legislation that has been introduced in this period concerning employment protection:   (ref.  Irish Statute Book)