How to be a successful Employer

Being an employer can be a very daunting prospect, with many areas and responsibilities that need to be understood and taken on to ensure both success and legal compliance. But if you can understand and master the fundamentals, it can be a very satisfying and liberating experience, providing complete control and flexibility over your PHB.

Here at Thrive Case Solutions, we can support you with your decision to become an employer and get you well on your way to success and empower you to manage your own PHB and care staff.

Read on to find out some of the fundamentals that are required to be a successful (and legal) employer, along with services we offer to take the concern away from you in what can be a considerable step in the responsibility and management of your PHB.

Employment

Employer's Liability Insurance

By law, all employers in the UK must have Employers' Liability (EL) Insurance. Your Personal Assistants (PAs) may be injured or get ill as a result of working for you. If this happens they might try to claim compensation from you if they think you are responsible. EL insurance covers you for the cost of this compensation. It is illegal for you to employ PAs without EL insurance and you face a heavy fine if you do not have it. You must display your EL insurance certificate where your PAs can easily see and read it.

EL insurance is the only compulsory insurance however there are other types of insurance that you may wish to consider.

How can we help? - we can signpost/introduce you to the appropriate providers of Employer's Liability insurance and save less time trawling the internet for this information.

Contracts

All employees have an employment contract with their employer. A contract is an agreement that sets out an employee’s:

employment conditions
rights
responsibilities
duties

These are called the ‘terms’ of the contract. Employees and employers must stick to a contract until it ends (for example, by an employer or employee giving notice or an employee being dismissed) or until the terms are changed (usually by agreement between the employee and employer).

How can we help? - we know how complicated and time-consuming creating a suitable contract can be, so we provide a service to create, maintain & update your staff contracts, ensuring you, as an employer, and your staff are kept safe from unnecessary disputes.

Financial Management

Bank Account

If you have chosen to go down the Direct Payments (DP) route, you must open a current account at a bank or building society to receive your DP into. This account must be completely separate from any personal accounts that you have. It is recommended that you use a completely different bank for your DP money as some banks have a policy of clearing personal money problems or overdrafts from any other accounts that you may have with them. If you keep your DP money at a different bank it saves this type of confusion.

The funding providers expect DP funds to be used only to pay for costs which are necessary to achieve the outcomes in your support plan.

HMRC registration

You need to register as an employer with HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) when you start employing staff. You can do this by visiting Register as an employer - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Payroll

Payroll management is essential when you have your caring staff under your employment. This can take many forms and can be done in many different ways. Your options are varied and will be dependent upon your appetite for responsibility, control and flexibility.

You can decide to manage the payroll by yourself, allowing complete control over your staff, their hours, pay, tax and pensions, or you could decide to get a 'Managed Account', allowing a third party to look after all elements of payroll. The second option releases you some responsibility, but you will also lose flexibility due to the payroll company having specific timings for when they will do certain payroll elements.

How can we help? - we can help provide external payroll and 'managed accounts' payroll services, or alternatively how to purchase, install and set up the right Payroll Software, to empower you to succeed with your PHB.

Pensions

As an employer, you must offer a workplace pension scheme by law. You, your staff and and the government pay into the pension.

How can we help? - we can help guide you through the process of registering with the Pensions Regulator and steps to set up your workplace pension and getting your employees enrolled.

Staff Management

Recruitment

Staff recruitment is key to providing quality and consistent care for you & your family.

Navigating the process of writing a job description, advertising the role, selecting candidates for interview right through to choosing the best candidate, offering the job, creating a contract and getting them working can be extremely lengthy, time consuming and stressful, but if you find the right staff, it can make it all worthwhile.

How can we help? - we can help with all areas of this process to help you focus on choosing the right candidate for the job so that you and your family can receive the best care you need.

Staff Rota's

When managing a PHB, it can be very time consuming managing staff and their shifts. Whether you're using an excel spreadsheet, a document or a a piece of paper, keeping these up to date is a job in itself, forever changing shifts, updating holidays. This is where you can now save time and energy using more online apps, such as RotaCloud to manage your rota's quickly and efficiently.

How can we help? - we can work with you to get all of your staff and their shifts up to date and online, weeks, months or years ahead so that you can get the care you need at the time you need it.

Training

Training your care staff is one of the most critical aspects of the PHB, to ensure that the staff you are using to look after you or your family member have the correct skills and training to be able to do so.

Finding the right training can be difficult and time consuming and determining the level of competencies needed requires a level of knowledge and judgement in order to get the right training programme.

How can we help? - we can support you in finding the right online training courses for both you as an employer and your care staff to ensure that their skills and knowledge provide safe and consistent care, along with working in partnership with your healthcare team to compliment the levels of specialist training required for your particular PHB circumstances.

Care Activities

A critical part of your PHB is ensuring that once you have the right care staff, you receive the right level of care without having to consistently manage your staff. This is where you could spend a lot of time and effort getting staff onboard, managing their day to day elements and checking if activities have been done at the right time. Of course, you are their to support your staff, but there are ways in which you can provide the tools they need to learn quickly and provide consistent care without you having to spend time managing daily. This way, you can get your time back for your family and also more holistic views of your PHB rather than daily tasks.

How can we help? - one of the ways we can help is to support you with the use of more smarter ways by using CQC digitally assured software to make things more simple. Software such as LogMyCare. We can work with you to set up software in your PHB, so that your carers can follow more structure activities, say when they've completed tasks, document handovers at the end of each shift and all exportable if you need to provide evidence to any other parties (such as ICB's, employment support, etc.). Check out our 'Make your PHB digital' page for more information.

Let us support your PHB journey

Thrive Care Solutions will provide a personalised service to support you every step of the way in your Personal Health Budget journey.
* Price lists can be sent on request

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