Hiring your first person without an HR system yet

The moment you hire, you need HR. Not the department, the obligations. And they arrive all at once, usually in the same week you decided you were too busy, which is why you were hiring.

Here is the short version of what actually has to exist.

Before you post the role

A job description that says what the person will do and what good looks like in six months. Half a page. If you cannot write it, you are not ready to hire, you are ready to outsource a task.

A number. What you will pay, decided before you speak to anyone, so the conversation does not happen at the end when you are emotionally committed.

Before you make an offer

A shortlist you can actually compare. Notes on each conversation, written the same day, because you will not remember which candidate said the good thing.

A reference or two. People skip this and regret it.

Before they start

An employment contract, signed. This is the non-negotiable one. Role, salary, start date, notice period, IP assignment, confidentiality. Get it right and it never comes up again.

Right to work checks, and payroll set up so the first payment does not go out late. Nothing damages a new hire's first month like a missed salary.

Equipment, accounts and someone to talk to on day one.

What can wait

A full HR platform. Performance review cycles. An employee handbook. A policy library. You have one employee. You do not need a system, you need the obligations covered.

Where Base fits

The whole sequence above is a set of steps that has to happen in order, at the exact moment you have the least time. Base runs it as it comes, drafts the role, keeps the candidate thread together, generates the employment contract through your signing tool and gets it out for signature.

When the team is big enough to need Workable properly, connect it and carry on. More in best HR and hiring tools for early-stage teams.