3 Regulations That All Business Owners Need To Be Aware Of
There are so many rules and regulations involved with running a business and that’s one of the things that new business owners struggle with the most. If you don’t understand all of the different rules that you have to follow as a business, it’s easy to end up on the wrong side of the law. That leads to fines and potentially even business closure, so there’s no room for error here. If you’re just starting out, these are the business regulations that you need to be aware of.
EMPLOYMENT LAW
When you first start the business, you’ll probably be running it on your own from home until you can get things off the ground. But when things start to move forward, you’re going to need to hire some employees and there are a lot of laws around that which you need to follow. Minimum wage is a very important one because if you’re found to be paying less than the minimum wage to any of your employees, you can land yourself in a lot of trouble. It’s important that you consider this before you start employing people because you need to ensure that you can actually afford to cover all of the wages.
There are also strict guidelines about discrimination during the hiring process so you have to put a lot of thought into the way that you word your job posting. If it’s seen to be alienating certain minority groups, that can cause you a lot of problems.
All of your employees are entitled to a certain amount of time off and it’s important that you ensure that you give them that. A lot of new business owners run into trouble because they don’t account for time off when hiring employees and scheduling and they end up with a lack of staff.
Carbon Emissions
All businesses are making more effort to go green for a couple of reasons. First off, it saves money and improves your public image, but you also need to make sure that you’re meeting regulations around carbon emissions. The regulations are changing and from April 2019 onwards, the new system of streamlined energy carbon reporting came into effect, which means that businesses need to produce a report of their carbon emissions every year. For a lot of business owners, SECR compliance can be difficult to manage, but it’s important that you get it right. There are some great companies out there that can help you with producing and filing the reports so it may be worth investing in.
Data Protection
Data protection is a huge issue for businesses at the moment. It’s important that you’re taking steps to protect your own data, but it’s even more important that you keep customer data secure. There are certain rules and regulations about how you need to handle customer data and protect it. For example, when you’re speaking with customers on the phone, you need to ask security questions to ensure that you’re speaking with the right person before you give any details. If you don’t follow these regulations to the letter, you can end up in a lot of legal trouble.
Business rules and regulations can be incredibly complex but it’s vital that you follow them properly, otherwise, your business might end up in a lot of trouble.