Your First Employee: Five Mistakes That Surface Under Scrutiny

Your first employee can be doing excellent work while the employment file quietly falls apart. That is what catches new employers out. The employee starts on Monday; customers still need attention; a payroll provider asks for data in fragments; a prevention document is left for later. By the end of the first month, the contract describes one job while the schedule, payslip and Social Security data describe another.

The first 90 days are not a special statutory grace period. Workers’ Statute They are the first point at which the contract, actual working time, payroll, Social Security data and prevention arrangements can be compared against one another. The duties discussed below arise from the employment rules themselves, not from an introductory three-month concession. If the records disagree, the problem is already visible. The three-month frame in this article is therefore an operational review window, not a legal deadline or a promise that an inspection will happen within it.

Nor does one error automatically trigger a visit. Under Article 20 of the law governing the Inspectorate, the Labour and Social Security Inspectorate (ITSS) can act through a superior order, an order arising from inspection plans, a reasoned request from another public body, a complaint or an inspector’s own initiative. Law 23/2015, Article 20 A missing record, incorrect payslip or weak prevention file does not automatically cause an inspection, and this article cannot predict whether the Inspectorate will visit a particular employer.

What these failures do is leave evidence. A worker can ask why their pay is short. A time record can contradict a part-time contract. A workplace accident can expose the absence of a risk assessment. An incentive applied through payroll can be checked against the conditions that existed on the hiring date. The first hire becomes expensive when the employer discovers the problem only after somebody else has started asking questions.

If you need the administrative sequence before the employee starts, use our first-employee hiring workflow. This guide begins where that one ends: with the mistakes that appear once the person is actually working.

Mistake 1: the contract describes a different working week

A common first-hire plan looks harmless: offer a part-time contract, see how demand develops, and add a few hours when the week gets busy. The risk sits in the phrase “a few hours”. Spanish employment law does not treat a part-time schedule as a loose estimate.

The Workers’ Statute requires a part-time contract to be in writing and to state the number of ordinary hours contracted per day, week, month or year and their distribution under the applicable collective agreement. If those requirements are not met, the statute presumes full-time work unless evidence proves the services were genuinely part-time. Workers’ Statute, Article 12.4(a)

That does not mean every extra minute converts a contract automatically. It means the employer must identify what the extra time was. Was it ordinary time that the contract failed to capture? Was there a valid written agreement for complementary hours? Did the employee receive the required notice? Were the hours paid and included in the corresponding Social Security contributions? Does the collective agreement set a different rule? The answer comes from the documents and the working reality together.

The mistake becomes easy to see when several records are put side by side:

Record	What it says	What a reviewer can compare
Contract	20 ordinary hours, stated distribution	Whether the written arrangement meets Article 12 and the collective agreement
Rota or calendar	Repeated 28-hour weeks	Whether the extra time was planned, isolated or structural
Daily record	Actual starts and finishes	Whether the person worked the rota and whether breaks are treated consistently
Payslip	Salary for 20 hours, perhaps an unexplained supplement	Whether all time was paid and classified correctly
Social Security data	Part-time coefficient and contribution inputs	Whether administrative data follows the employment reality

Editing the rota or asking the employee to sign a tidier version after the month has closed creates a credibility problem on top of the original discrepancy. Preserve the real records. Work out whether there are unpaid or unreported hours, then correct the relationship with advice based on the contract and collective agreement.

For a role that has already settled into a longer weekly pattern, the sensible decision may be to increase the agreed hours prospectively rather than keep treating a permanent need as an exception. That decision must be documented correctly; a full-time-to-part-time or part-time-to-full-time conversion cannot simply be imposed as an informal scheduling change. Workers’ Statute, Article 12.4(e)

Mistake 2: the time-recording system exists only in theory

Some first employers put “hours to be recorded” in the contract and assume the sentence is the system. Others download an app but never tell the employee when to use it. A third group reconstructs the whole month from the planned rota before payroll. None of those approaches reliably records what happened each day.

Article 34.9 of the Workers’ Statute requires the company to guarantee a daily record that includes each worker’s specific start and finish times. The company must retain those records for four years and keep them available to workers, their representatives and the ITSS. Workers’ Statute, Article 34.9 The official Ministry and ITSS guide explains that the system can take different forms, including workable telematic records for remote work; what matters is a reliable daily record that fits any collective or company rules. MITES and ITSS guide on working-time records

Part-time work has an extra monthly control. The employer must total the hours each month, give the worker a copy of the summary with the payslip and preserve the monthly summaries for at least four years. Failure to comply with those part-time recording obligations creates a presumption of full-time work unless contrary evidence proves the part-time nature of the services. Workers’ Statute, Article 12.4(c)

The first-week test is simple. Ask the employee to show how yesterday was recorded. Then ask yourself whether you can retrieve the entry, explain any correction and produce the same record during an inspection. If the answer depends on memory, the system is not operating.

A workable routine does not need to be elaborate:

Define what counts as the start and finish of work for this role, including remote days and work away from the usual premises.
Give the employee a clear method on day one and explain how genuine corrections are requested.
Check missing entries weekly while the facts are recent.
At month-end, compare the record with the rota, absences and payroll inputs.
For part-time staff, provide the monthly summary with the payslip and retain it.

Do not turn the record into a surveillance project. It has a limited purpose: documenting working time. If the chosen tool also tracks location, screenshots or activity, obtain separate advice before enabling those functions. This is an operational caution, not a conclusion about a particular monitoring system. The employment adviser should see the process before the first month closes, especially where there is flexible or remote work.

Working-time and time-recording breaches are classified as serious labour infringements under Article 7.5 of the Law on Infringements and Sanctions in the Social Order (LISOS). LISOS, Article 7.5 The general fine range for serious labour infringements is €751 to €7,500, divided into minimum, medium and maximum grades. The eventual amount is not automatic; classification, graduation criteria and the facts of the case matter. LISOS, Articles 39 and 40

Mistake 3: a recruitment incentive is included in the budget before eligibility is checked

The employer receives a quote that shows a Social Security contribution incentive (bonificación), treats the lower figure as the permanent monthly cost and approves the hire. Later, somebody discovers that the worker did not have the required status on the relevant date, the contract falls within an exclusion, the employer did not meet a condition, or a maintenance obligation was misunderstood.

There is no single “first employee discount” that every freelancer can claim. SEPE publishes current summaries of recruitment bonuses and reductions, while Royal Decree-law 1/2023 contains the common framework for many state contribution incentives. The applicable scheme can depend on the worker’s circumstances, contract, employer, exclusions and the data communicated to Social Security. SEPE: recruitment incentives and grants Royal Decree-law 1/2023

The common rules include beneficiary requirements and exclusions. Some incentives also carry employment-maintenance duties, and benefits obtained without satisfying the conditions can be subject to repayment. Royal Decree-law 1/2023, Articles 8, 9, 11 and 13 Other schemes, including regional grants or incentives governed by separate legislation, can use different application routes and deadlines.

A recruitment incentive should influence the hiring budget only after the exact worker, contract, employer requirements, exclusions and maintenance conditions have been checked under the live scheme. Use a short eligibility memo before the start date:

identify the exact legal scheme, not a generic label from a calculator;
record the relevant facts about the worker and the documents on which eligibility depends;
check employer tax and Social Security conditions where the scheme requires them;
confirm exclusions, incompatibilities, duration and maintenance duties;
verify which code or data must appear in the registration and contribution process;
retain the evidence and schedule a later check of continuing conditions.

The employee’s registration in the General Scheme must in any event be filed before the employment relationship starts, and can generally be filed up to 60 calendar days in advance. Social Security: affiliation filing deadlines That filing deadline is not itself proof of incentive eligibility, but it is one reason the review belongs before day one.

If the first payroll has already been processed without the expected benefit, do not force the amount into the next contribution file. Check whether the issue is a correctable data error, a missed procedural step or genuine ineligibility. The recovery route and time limit depend on the scheme. If the incentive never applied, update the employment cost forecast immediately; waiting does not make the underlying condition true.

Mistake 4: occupational risk prevention is postponed until there is an accident

A freelancer who worked alone may never have needed an employer’s prevention system. That changes with the first employee. The INSST distinguishes self-employed people with employees from those who neither employ staff nor work alongside others, and points small employers towards the public Prevencion10 service. INSST: occupational risk prevention for self-employed people

The Occupational Risk Prevention Law gives workers a right to effective protection and places the corresponding duty on the employer. The duty includes integrating prevention into management and taking the necessary measures on risk assessment, planning, information, training, emergencies, health surveillance and the organisation of preventive resources. Occupational Risk Prevention Law, Article 14

The assessment must fit the real job. A generic office checklist may miss lone work, manual handling, driving, customer aggression, chemicals, machinery or a badly arranged home workstation. Article 16 requires prevention to be integrated through a prevention plan, with risk assessment and preventive planning as essential instruments. Occupational Risk Prevention Law, Article 16

Information and training are not interchangeable documents. Article 18 requires information about workplace and job-specific risks and applicable protection measures. Article 19 requires sufficient, appropriate preventive training, generally at hiring and when functions, technology or equipment change. Occupational Risk Prevention Law, Articles 18 and 19

This gap often surfaces after an incident, when the employer is asked to show what existed beforehand: the assessment, preventive measures, training, instructions, equipment records and the investigation. Buying a prevention service after the event may help with future compliance, but it does not create contemporaneous evidence for the earlier period.

Prevention infringements have their own sanction scale. Under LISOS, serious occupational risk prevention infringements carry fines from €2,451 to €49,180 across the three grades. Not every missing or imperfect document falls into that classification, and the final grading depends on the specific breach and statutory criteria. LISOS, Article 40.2

Before the employee starts work, verify that the prevention organisation covers the real task and location, not the job title alone. If an external prevention service is engaged, the employer still needs an internal owner who supplies accurate information, implements measures and records changes. Under Article 14.4 of the Occupational Risk Prevention Law, using an external specialist complements the employer’s preventive action but does not relieve the employer of the duty to protect workers. Occupational Risk Prevention Law, Article 14.4

Mistake 5: payroll is calculated from a template, not the employment facts

The first payslip often inherits an old spreadsheet, a software default or a salary figure copied from the offer email. The errors are mundane: wrong collective agreement, wrong professional group, an annual salary divided incorrectly, supplements omitted, part-time percentage applied twice, absences mishandled, or extra hours never reaching payroll.

Spanish law requires salary to be paid punctually and documented. Regular pay periods cannot exceed one month, and the worker must receive an individual receipt that clearly separates earnings and lawful deductions under the official model or an authorised alternative. Workers’ Statute, Article 29 LISOS classifies failure to show the amounts actually paid on the salary receipt as a serious infringement. LISOS, Article 7.3

A mathematically correct payslip can still be legally wrong. Payroll software will calculate the inputs it receives. It will not decide whether the role belongs in a different professional group, whether a sector supplement applies, whether the stated annual salary properly accounts for extra salary payments or whether the recorded hours contradict the contract.

The first payroll should therefore be treated as a controlled close, not a routine export. Compare:

the signed contract and any annex;
the applicable collective agreement and salary tables;
the employee’s professional group, working time and pay structure;
the daily record, absences, leave and the treatment of any complementary or overtime hours;
Social Security registration and contribution data;
tax withholding inputs;
the bank payment and the final payslip.

When the employee questions an amount, answer with the calculation and its source. Do not postpone a small unexplained difference simply because the employment relationship is new. Claims for economic amounts generally have a one-year limitation period running from when the action could be brought, under Article 59.2 of the Workers’ Statute. Workers’ Statute, Article 59 The exact deadline and any interruption of it need case-specific review.

An error found internally should produce a documented correction: identify the affected period, recalculate pay and contributions, issue the appropriate corrected documentation, explain the adjustment to the employee and preserve the audit trail. The correct procedure depends on the error. Quietly changing the next payslip without explaining the earlier shortfall makes reconciliation harder.

The 30-, 60- and 90-day control

A defensible first-hire control is a three-way reconciliation: compare the written contract with the work actually performed, compare both with the time record, and then compare all three with payroll and Social Security data before the monthly close. The sequence is a management recommendation derived from the legal records above, not a statutory checklist.

By day 30: prove the system operates

Retrieve the signed contract, registration evidence, applicable collective agreement, prevention file, training evidence, daily records and first payroll inputs. Speak to the employee about the actual schedule and duties. Correct any missing processes now, without manufacturing retrospective evidence.

By day 60: look for drift

Compare two months. Repeated extra time, changed duties, a new workplace, regular supplements or repeated manual payroll adjustments show that the original setup may no longer fit. Recheck any incentive whose continuing conditions depend on employment or employer circumstances.

By day 90: decide what needs a formal change

Close the review with named actions. Amend hours or duties properly where the reality has changed. Resolve wage or contribution differences. Update the risk assessment when the work or equipment has changed. Keep a short exception log showing the issue, evidence, decision, owner and completion date.

This control does not prevent a complaint or inspection. It makes the employer less dependent on memory and gives an adviser usable evidence before a small discrepancy becomes several months of corrections.

When to involve an employment adviser

Advice is most useful before the offer turns into a confirmed start date. At that point, the role, collective agreement, contract, working time, cost, incentive position and preventive arrangement can still be designed as one system.

If the employee has already started, obtain advice promptly when the contract and actual hours differ, no reliable daily record exists, an expected incentive is uncertain, the prevention setup was not active, payroll is disputed, an accident occurred or an ITSS communication arrived. An inspection notice or employee claim must be handled on the basis of the actual documents and dates; a general article cannot determine the response.

TaxFactory’s employment and payroll advisory team can review the hiring facts before the first payroll and coordinate contract, Social Security, payroll and ongoing employment obligations. Bring the contract, schedule, time records, payslips, registration data, collective agreement used and prevention documents. The productive conversation starts with what happened, not with a cleaned-up reconstruction.

Frequently asked questions

Does one hiring mistake automatically cause a labour inspection?

No. The Labour and Social Security Inspectorate can act through inspection plans, a superior order, a reasoned request from another body, a complaint or an inspector’s own initiative. A contract, time-recording, payroll or prevention failure does not by itself prove why an inspection started, but it may constitute an infringement that can be verified once the employment relationship is examined.

What happens if a part-time employee regularly works more hours than the contract states?

The answer depends on whether the extra time was lawful complementary time, how it was agreed and recorded, whether it was paid and included in the corresponding Social Security contributions, and what the applicable collective agreement says. A part-time contract must state the ordinary hours and their distribution; failures in the required form or records can create a statutory presumption of full-time work unless contrary evidence proves the part-time reality.

Can I introduce a working-time record after the employee has started?

You can and should correct a missing system immediately, but a new record does not recreate reliable start and finish times for earlier days. Preserve what genuinely exists, do not manufacture retrospective entries, reconcile schedules and payroll, and obtain employment advice on any uncovered period or excess hours.

Can a recruitment incentive be claimed later if it was missed on the first payroll?

Sometimes a data or application error can be corrected, but there is no universal retroactive fix. Eligibility depends on the specific incentive, the conditions applicable to the worker and the employer at the relevant time, exclusions, filing data and any maintenance obligation. Check the live rule before hiring and review a missed benefit promptly rather than assuming it can be recovered.

What should be reviewed before the first payroll is approved?

Compare the signed contract, actual hours, applicable collective agreement, professional group, agreed salary, supplements, absences, Social Security data, withholding inputs and any incentive. The payslip should show the amounts actually paid and separate earnings and lawful deductions clearly; approval should leave evidence of who checked the inputs and what was corrected.