You may have concerns about your employee's attendance levels or about their standards of work but it is critical that if you do have concerns that you speak to the employee in question at the earliest possible opportunity, because if you don't, these issues will either get worse or leave you feeling frustrated that there hasn't been an improvement.

Are you sure you’ve covered all the why’s and wherefore’s and how you’ll nurture your newbie in the first few weeks of employment with you? It's really easy to make assumptions that because a new employee may have the skillset that you are looking for to jump to conclusions, hoping that it will all work out fine. It’s almost guaranteed that they’ll have superficial knowledge of who you are and how you do things.

Did you know that it is a legal requirement under the Employment Rights Act 1996 that your employees have a written statement of particulars, ie, a written contract of employment, in place by the first day of them starting to work for you?

You balance your time between being in the business and running the operation, and out of the business and thinking about how you want your business to grow and how you can make your business as efficient as possible. The one key question that is vitally important and will make the difference between whether you achieve your goals or not is what a model employee would look like to you.