Getting your HR foundations right: a practical annual checklist
As you plan for growth, it's easy to focus on sales targets and product development, but your HR foundations are just as important for scaling with confidence. Too often, growing businesses leave employment contracts, HR policies, and risk management on the "later" list, only to find themselves scrambling when issues arise.
If you're running a growing business without in-house legal expertise, this guide is for you. Here's a practical, actionable checklist to get your employment law essentials sorted, so you can get ahead of problems, empower your team, and make confident people decisions all year.
Employment Contracts: The Foundation of Your Relationship with Your Team
Your employment contracts are the cornerstone of your relationship with each team member. They set out the terms, expectations, and protections that govern how you work together. A well-drafted contract protects both your business and your team. A weak one creates ambiguity, disputes, and risk.
What matters:
As your business scales, you're likely bringing on people with different roles, responsibilities, and working arrangements. Your contracts need to reflect this diversity while remaining consistent and legally compliant.
The checklist:
Are your contracts up to date with the latest employment law?
Do they clearly set out roles, responsibilities, salary, benefits, and working arrangements?
Are notice periods, probation periods, and performance expectations clearly defined?
Do your contracts reflect your business culture and values, or are they just generic templates pulled from the internet?
Do they cover flexible working, remote working, or hybrid arrangements, if relevant to your business?
Do you have robust confidentiality clauses and enforceable restrictive covenants (non-compete, non-solicitation) if needed?
Are there clear provisions around intellectual property, if your business creates IP?
Do your contracts address disciplinary procedures, performance management, and grounds for termination?
Have you considered what happens if someone leaves, including handover, knowledge transfer, entitlement to commission and any garden leave arrangements?
Why this matters:
A well-drafted contract reduces the risk of disputes by setting clear expectations from day one. It signals that you're serious as an employer. And when problems do arise, a clear contract gives you the structure to handle them fairly and legally.
Action step:
If you haven't reviewed your contracts in the past 12 months, or if you're using generic templates, schedule a review this month. Even a simple audit can identify gaps that need addressing.
HR Policies: Creating Structure That Reflects Your Culture
Clear HR policies provide structure, reduce misunderstandings, and demonstrate your commitment to fair treatment. Too often, growing businesses have outdated or unclear policies that don't reflect how they actually work, or they have no formal policies at all.
What matters:
Your HR policies should be a practical guide for how your business operates as an employer. They're not just about legal compliance (though they need to be that too); they're about setting expectations, supporting your team, and building a culture you're proud of.
The checklist:
Do you have a staff handbook or written HR policies? If not, this is your priority.
Are all essential areas covered: flexible working, performance management, grievance and disciplinary procedures, absence management, health and safety, data protection, code of conduct?
Are your policies up to date with current employment law?
Do your policies genuinely reflect how your business actually operates, or are they disconnected from reality?
Have you communicated your policies clearly to your team, and do they know where to find them?
Is there a process for regular policy review and updates? (Employment law changes regularly.)
Do your policies balance protecting your business with treating your team fairly?
Are your managers trained on how to implement the policies?
Why this matters:
Clear, current policies protect your business from employment claims and demonstrate fair treatment. They also create consistency, so every team member knows what to expect and every manager knows how to respond. Most importantly, they help you build the culture you want, by putting your values into practice.
Action step:
If you don't have a staff handbook, create one now. Start with the essentials and build from there. If you do have one, review it against current law and your actual ways of working. Where there's a gap between policy and practice, update the policy to reflect reality.
Performance Management, Grievance and Disciplinary Processes: Managing Difficult Situations Fairly
Every business, no matter how well run, will eventually encounter performance issues, disputes, or behavioural concerns. A clear, fair process is essential for resolving these situations confidently and legally, and for protecting both your business and your people.
What matters:
Most employment disputes arise not because there's a problem, but because there's no clear process for addressing it. People don't know what's expected. Decisions feel arbitrary. Communication breaks down. A clear process prevents this.
The checklist:
Is your grievance procedure documented and clearly communicated to your team?
Do you have a disciplinary procedure that is fair, proportionate, and legally compliant?
Have your managers been trained on handling performance management and difficult conversations?
Do you document performance issues and improvement plans, or do you rely on memory?
Do you understand the difference between informal conversations and formal processes, and when each is appropriate?
Are you aware of where to get expert support if a complex situation arises (e.g., a potential redundancy, a serious misconduct issue, or a team conflict)?
Do you have a process for handling sensitive matters like sickness absence, mental health support, and reasonable adjustments?
Why this matters:
Transparent, fair processes protect your business by demonstrating that you've treated people properly. They reduce the risk of employment tribunal claims. They also make difficult conversations much easier because everyone knows the process is fair and consistent. And they protect your people by ensuring they have a voice and a fair hearing.
Action step:
Read your performance management, grievance and disciplinary procedures to ensure they are written in simple, clear language. Test them with your managers to make sure they're practical. Share them with your team so everyone knows what to expect if a situation arises.
Risk Assessment and Gap Analysis: Focus Your Effort Where It Matters
You can't fix everything at once. A practical risk assessment helps you focus your time and resources where it matters most.
What matters:
Understanding your actual risks allows you to prioritise smartly and make the best use of your time and budget.
The checklist:
Have you identified the top HR risks facing your business? (For example: rapid hiring, performance management challenges, retention of key people, absence management, succession planning, employee disputes, compliance gaps.)
Which risks are most likely to materialise, and which would be most costly if they did?
Have you considered scenarios such as a key person leaving suddenly, facing an employment tribunal claim, or preparing for investment or sale?
Are there known gaps in your contracts, policies, or compliance processes that create risk?
Have you validated your risk assessment with someone with HR or legal expertise, or is it based on guesswork?
Why this matters:
Prioritising based on actual risk means you make more strategic, cost-effective decisions. You protect your business where it matters most, without unnecessary expense or overwhelm.
Action step:
Take an hour this month to list your top three HR risks. Write them down. Then focus your initial efforts on addressing those three, rather than trying to fix everything at once.
Building Culture and Compliance Together
Here's something important: culture and compliance aren't at odds. They're partners.
The best businesses build HR practices that reflect their values AND protect their people AND manage risk. That takes pragmatic, commercially minded advice. It's not about following rules to the letter and sacrificing culture. It's about doing things right for your team and your business.
This is where having expert support makes a difference. Rather than treating compliance as a box-ticking exercise, you build practices that strengthen your culture while protecting your business.
Why Professional Support Matters
If this checklist feels overwhelming, you're not alone. Many ambitious businesses find managing the people daunting, especially without in-house expertise. That's exactly where professional support can make all the difference.
With over 20 years of experience in employment law, HR management, and people strategy, we’ve helped countless businesses like yours get their foundations right. Our approach is pragmatic, commercially focused, and grounded in real-world business needs. We understand the pressures you face as a growing business, and know how to give you advice that actually works.
Whether you need a one-off review of your contracts and policies, support with a specific people issue, or ongoing fractional expertise embedded in your leadership team, We’re here to help you build a workplace that works for everyone.
The support is flexible. You can start with a specific project (like creating a staff handbook or reviewing your contracts), or you can have ongoing fractional support as you scale. Either way, the goal is the same: to give you the clarity and confidence to grow while doing right by your team.
Getting Started
Use the checklist above to get your HR essentials in order for 2026, and don't hesitate to reach out if you'd like expert support or simply a second pair of eyes.
Taking action now means fewer headaches, less stress, and more headspace for growth in the year ahead. Your people are your biggest asset. Get your HR foundations right, and you set yourself up for a stronger, more confident year.
For the full picture on getting your legal and commercial foundations right, check out our companion piece on getting your legal foundations right. Together, they give you a complete view of what matters as you scale.
This article is for general information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Specific legal or strategic advice should be sought separately and tailored to the particular circumstances of your business. If you would like to discuss how these issues apply to your organisation, please get in touch.
