Hey Rifat, welcome to the community 👋 Thanks for posting and sharing your thoughts. I believe you’re on the right track with this approach. Echoing Simon Sinek’s words here: “You don’t hire for skills, you hire for attitude. You can always teach skills.” Starting with candidates who have the right mindset and a willingness to learn can be incredibly powerful (particularly in smaller businesses). In HR, we often find that skills are teachable, but attitude and adaptability (behaviours) are harder to instill. Here are a few pointers to help you get started: 1. Focus on Core Values: Identify the attitudes and values that align with your company’s mission. When hiring, look for people who reflect those qualities – a positive outlook, eagerness to learn, and a collaborative spirit, a genuine care and passion for helping people. 2. In the interview, assess these qualities through behavioural questioning. For example "can you tell me about a time when you went out of your way to help a team mate achieve X" (collaborative spirit). 3. Develop a Training Plan: Consider creating a clear training or mentorship plan for new hires. This way, you can bring in those who might be light on specific experience but are ready to develop with either your guidance or that of others. 4. Set Clear Development Milestones: Outline specific goals to keep new team members on track. This not only supports their development but also helps you assess progress without putting your company at risk. One the other hand however - you will need some CORE staff that can do the role as required with little to no oversight - otherwise you will be teaching everyone in your team how to do their jobs and will have no time for your own work (which can be a recipe for disaster over time). It’s great to see your commitment to fostering talent and growth! Let me know if you’d like more insights on implementing this, or if you want to chat about your HR needs. Happy to help as you build your team!

@Rifat Gedik Any time! thanks for sharing

@Jonathon Power - Great question - In short, if an employee does not provide sufficient evidence inline with your leave policy (i.e a med cert or even stat dec) then this can go down as an unexplained absence (which is unpaid). This time is also not counted toward their service with the employer and would be subject to disciplinary action (failure to follow workplace policy). It's a strong stance, but a fair one. Staff are provided with entitlements under the NES, beyond these entitlements, its then unpaid leave (where approved by the employer) or an unexplained absence. Larger enterprise do this well - with having such a large workforce, there is no 'grey' area here. Therefore they apply the mandatory requirements and staff abide by it. Hope this helps!

@Tessa Herrod Completely reasonable approach - and tbh the most common of employers we work with. Have you had many staff 'play silly buggers' with this approach and break the trust extended when taking sick days? We find as businesses grow and become more dense and complex, having a fair but strict process for taking sick days allows mgmt to hold staff more accountable. There's nothing worse for moral and culture where there's someone taking advantage of the trust provided whilst others are trying to do the right thing.. Also leads to a somewhat difficult and time consuming situation for mgmt when this needs to be managed to an outcome. Again to save all of this, it's sometimes easier to apply a one-size-fits-all blanket policy to it, and to rely on the process (removing the trypical responses of 'well iv'e never been asked before' or 'why doesn't XXXX get asked for med certs?') - just my 2 cents - again different stokes for different folks

@Usman Gane Welcome Usman! Pleasure to have you with us!

@Sarah Heriot welcome Sarah! Glad to have you as part of the community. I’ve been following along with your socials, awesome stuff 🚀

Good question! My recommendation is generally to start with an offer letter. An offer letter can be a quick, one-page document that formally extends a conditional offer to the candidate. It should include the critical details—such as salary/wages, title, commencement date, and location—so the candidate has a clear understanding of the core terms. You may even like to include in your offer letter that the employee signs and returns this to confirm their conditional acceptance of the offer. Drafting an offer letter takes about five minutes, and it provides immediate confirmation to the candidate that you intend to proceed with their employment. This can be especially beneficial, as it reassures the candidate and may encourage them to turn down other opportunities, essentially taking them “off the market.” Meanwhile, it also buys you time to carefully prepare the full employment contract and begin any necessary pre-onboarding tasks to ensure they’re ready for day one. Interested to hear how if this suggestion addressed your time and pressure concerns once put in practice.