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Establishing a successful recruitment process and clear written employment contracts for new employees can have a major impact on your business.

Every business needs to be aware of its obligations under minimum wage and equal pay laws, as well as recent pensions auto-enrolment changes.

You must comply with legal restrictions on employees' working hours and time off, or risk claims, enforcement action and even prosecution.

The right employment policies are an essential part of effective staff management. Make sure any policy is clear and well communicated to employees.

While sick employees need to be treated fairly, you need to ensure that 'sickness' is not being used as cover for unauthorised absence.

Most pregnant employees are entitled to maternity leave and maternity pay, while new fathers are entitled to paternity leave and paternity pay.

As well as undermining morale, illegal discrimination can lead to workplace grievances. Employee discrimination is covered by the Equality Act 2010.

Home, remote and lone workers are becoming increasingly commonplace. Key issues include communication and how to manage and motivate people remotely.

The right approach to consulting with and providing information to your employees can improve employee motivation and performance.

Disciplinary and grievance issues can be a major burden to employers. Putting in place and following the right procedures is essential.

Following the right dismissal and redundancy procedures helps protect your business and minimise the risk of a legal dispute at tribunal.

Employment tribunal claims are a worrying prospect for any employer. A tribunal case is a no-win situation – even if the claim is unjustified.

Lightyear launches investment accounts for sole traders

29 August 2023

Lightyear is targeting UK freelancers and sole traders with new business accounts that promise them the chance to earn more interest on company money.

Investment platform Lightyear is targeting more than four million sole director companies in the UK with its new business and investment accounts. Opening up to sole director companies and freelancers first, Lightyear's UK business accounts will have access to 3,500+ international stocks and funds and offers up to 4.5% interest on uninvested company cash.

The investment platform has partnered with BlackRock to give small businesses access to Money Market Funds (MMFs) without the usual high fees or minimum investments. MMFs track the real interest rate, a benefit usually reserved for larger companies. For UK small businesses, Money Market Funds are hard to access, with options in the market reserved for large corporates who can buy in with a £1 million minimum investment. These funds are normally accessed via business investment accounts that you can only open once you're a business of a certain size.

Business bank accounts

According to the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), the UK is home to 5.5 million private sector businesses - 4.1 million of which have no employees. However, most business accounts with high street banks pay little or no interest and freelancers and sole director businesses often find it hard to access the stock market.

With another interest rate hike on the horizon, Lightyear says that the new business accounts could help freelancers and sole director companies make the most of their company funds, ensuring that excess corporate cash isn't eaten up by inflation while sitting in bank current accounts.

Higher interest rates

Lightyear is looking to open up its business offering to all types of SMEs and larger start-ups over the coming months. Martin Sokk, co-founder and ceo at Lightyear, said: "The retail investment market has come a long way in the last ten years or so … [but] the business market is miles behind. In fact, for the UK's solopreneurs, it basically doesn't exist. We're first focusing on the largest, but most underserved part of the market - sole owner businesses - then we'll open this out to multi-user and larger businesses in the next few months."

Taavet Hinrikus, co-founder of Wise and start-up investor, said: "Businesses in the UK need to make sure their cash is not draining its value against inflation, but they currently don't have enough options to do this. With today's high interest rate climate, Lightyear's launch of both business investment accounts and MMFs is a timely step towards helping entrepreneurs put their cash to work. Their new business accounts enable freelancers to earn interest and invest their otherwise stagnant cash, and their BlackRock MMFs partnership introduces these entrepreneurs to a whole new area of investing, previously reserved for larger corporates."

Written by Rachel Miller.

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