You are viewing a section of the Starting a Business Guide.

See the full guide 

 

Hiring

Recruitment refers to the process of hiring employees. As your business grows you may need to employ additional staff with new or different skills, or possibly employ people for the first time.

Making the right choice and ensuring you meet your obligations to your employees can ensure your business continues to succeed. If you're unable to train existing staff, it may be possible to acquire the skills you need by hiring new staff. Hiring a new employee for your business is a big decision, so it's important to do it right.

What to consider

There are a number of things to think about when hiring employees, for example, what rights will your staff have to things like minimum rates of pay, pay slips or leave?

To make sure you find the best person for your business, it's a good idea to invest some time into recruitment planning. Good recruitment and induction practices will help your new employee start off on the right foot and contribute to the productivity of your business sooner.

Undertaking the recruitment process may also be a good opportunity to identify current skills gaps, and well as diversify your workplace and hire people facing barriers to employment. There are a number of financial incentives available for businesses to support people with a disability, Indigenous Australians, the long-term unemployed, young people, parents and the mature-aged. This includes wage subsidies of up to $10,000 (GST inclusive) for eligible job seekers.

Free resources

The Fair Work Ombudsman offers free online resources to guide you through the hiring process. These include:

  • a guide to hiring new employees which gives advice about the best way to employ new workers and outlines your obligations as an employer
  • an online learning course on hiring employees, which helps you build a picture of the employee you want to hire. The course includes interactive tools and a video activity to help you practice your interview skills.

jobactive website

jobactive is a free online recruitment website funded and operated by the Australian Government. By registering as an employer, you can manage your entire hiring process:

  • advertise jobs for free to thousands of job seekers
  • search for staff based on the criteria set in your advertisement
  • create a personalised dashboard to track all your job vacancies and applications traffic in one place.

Get started

Read our page on the recruitment process to help you get started in hiring new or additional employees for your business.

You can also:

Thanks for your feedback. If you have any ideas on how we can improve, we'd love to hear them.

Please provide your comments in the feedback form.

You might also be interested in