Free HR and team templates for trades businesses

The first hire changes a trades business more than any other decision. Suddenly you are an employer, with legal duties that begin on day one and paperwork that has to exist whether or not you have time to write it. These templates cover the documents a small firm needs in the first few years of having a team.

Start with the written statement of employment particulars. Since April 2020 every employee and worker is entitled to receive one on or before their first day, covering pay, hours, holiday, place of work, notice, probation and more. This is a legal right, not a formality, and it applies to the apprentice and the part-time office help as much as to a full-time engineer. The contract template here covers the required particulars along with the clauses trades need in practice: tools and equipment, vehicle use, on-call arrangements, training cost recovery, and confidentiality around customer lists.

Absence management comes next, because it is where small firms lose the most money and the most goodwill. Holiday request forms that stop the double-booked week. Self-certification and return-to-work interview forms, which sound heavy-handed but are the single most effective way to reduce casual absence, largely because someone notices and asks.

The disciplinary and grievance letters follow the Acas Code of Practice structure — invitation, right to be accompanied, outcome, appeal. Employment tribunals can adjust awards where the Code has not been followed, so the process matters as much as the decision.

Finally, apprentice review records. Apprenticeships work when someone tracks progress deliberately; they fall apart when the apprentice becomes a permanent second pair of hands and nobody signs anything off.

These are practical starting points for common situations, not legal advice. Take proper advice before any dismissal.