Hiring Employees in South Africa for the first time

Your business is growing and you can’t get around to doing everything that is required. It’s time to hire your first employee but how do you go about hiring employees in South Africa and make sure that you are getting quality candidates. One of the benefits of being able to hire an employee as a full-time worker is that it makes it possible for you delegate out lower level work to them, which frees you up as the owner to work on sales and developing new customer relationships and developing new products.

Is the new employee coming on board to help take over the more mundane tasks thereby freeing up your time, or are you hiring someone who is skilled in an area your company is growing?

Building your employee team

You need to think about how you want to structure your new team, have you found people you want to bring on board or do you need to start from scratch and begin a recruitment campaign. These are important things to think about and if you don’t spend some quality time developing a plan of action on how you want this to unfold it can be a very frustrating process.

Before you hire your first employee; ask yourself the following questions:

• What do I need my employee to do for me?
• How many hours per week do I need my employee to work?
• How many more sales do I need to bring in to cover my employee’s salary?
• What employee benefits can I afford to provide?
• How much time will I need to spend managing my employee?

Do’s and do not’s of hiring staff

• Do write a clear and concise description of the position before you post your ad.
• Don’t neglect to scan the classifieds (either online or in your local newspaper) to get a sense of how much other employers are paying for comparable positions.
• Do interview at least three candidates for the job.
• Don’t hire the first candidate who walks in the door.
• Do call at least two references (preferably former employers) to check the candidate’s background.
• Don’t ask the candidate any questions about his age, race, gender, family or health.
• Do hire a candidate who has the potential to grow with your business.
• Don’t hire a candidate because you’re burned out and desperate.
• Do prepare an employee handbook and require your employee to sign it.
• Do give the employee an offer letter spelling out his duties and compensation.
• Don’t promise raises and benefits you can’t deliver.

Employee background checks

You need to make sure that you background screen every single employee. You should be cautious of exactly who you are bringing into your company. Some of the checks you can do during the recruitment process include:

• Does the person have a criminal record involving theft or fraud?
• Verify that educational qualifications are from recognized institutions.
• Call at least two previous employers to confirm the applicant’s position, length of employment and their reason for leaving.

You as an employer can turn to us at i-Check Data Solutions to help you to run certain checks on your behalf. Once an applicant signs a form granting permission to run a background check, you will specify which checks you wish to run and we will send you a comprehensive report, usually within two days.

We can check the following on your behalf:

• High school certificate. (R 70)
• Tertiary education. (R 90 per a qualification)
• ID and physical address and contact numbers. (R 7.99)
• Passport and work permit. (Call us for a quote)
• credit and criminal record checks. (R 15.99 for a comprehensive ITC Report)
• Drivers and PDP verification. (R 40 for a combo report )

The cost of running these checks is very affordable and definitely worth investing in.