Many small businesses will reach the point where they need to think about recruitment. This might be, for example, due to increased workload or a lack of knowledge requiring outside expertise. The problem, though, is that the business is often not bringing in the income required to pay for that additional staff member.

Knowing when is the right time to recruit is, therefore, very difficult, especially in these uncertain economic times when revenues are changing dramatically for many businesses. I know a company who was due to interview for their first member of staff and the day before the interview lost one of their major contracts. In a way they were lucky it happened before they had taken on the employee, but it does show how decisions made one day can be forced to change another. Employing staff is a huge commitment, and businesses need to understand all aspects of the contract between themselves and the employee, and that includes how they can potentially dismiss them.

This is one sure to rouse strong opinions - following maternity leave nearly two-thirds of employers don't expect female employees to return to their job with many citing previous experience as the reason for their viewpoint. While this is clearly the case in some circumstances, from my experience most women do return to work within eighteen months of giving birth and many return far earlier than that.

Business need to be careful about making assumptions otherwise they could end up facing claims for discrimination. Employers also need to think about their return to work policy - or lack there of. Important issues such as working hours will need to be discussed and company policy made clear from the outset to avoid issues between employer and employee when it comes to returning to work.

It has apparently proved successful during the trial run in Merseyside this year, but will the Government’s New Enterprise Allowance (NEA) prove itself as effective nationwide? The scheme works with the long-term unemployed (receiving Jobseekers Allowance for at least 26 weeks) to provide them with the opportunity to start their own small business by offering access to a business mentor who will work with entrereneurs to put together business plans. They will also receive a £65 per week stipend for the first thirteen weeks (reducing to £33 per week for the subsequent thirteen weeks) and in addition the entrepreneurs will have access to a £1,000 business loan.

Do you really know what your employees are doing when they should be working? Surfing the net, up-dating their social networking status or perhaps, worst of all, looking for another job - while you are paying them to do their current job! Job recruitment site, Monster, reports that over 25% of employees spend three hours of their working week actually looking for a new job. Worse still, 50% of those surveyed said they had up-dated their CV and applied for jobs during work time. Spread across the entire UK workforce this means over 14 million lost hours equalling over £250 million a week. So, a contented workforce means saving money, and you can't argue with the business sense of that.

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