HR for new practices

Open with your HR already right.

Name: Vet HR
Address: 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2H 9JQ, GB
Telephone: 0800 023 5232

The weeks before a practice opens are consumed by premises, equipment and cash flow, and HR slips to the bottom of the list. Vet HR provides HR for new veterinary practices: contracts ready before the first shift, policies from day one and staff systems that will still fit at three times the headcount.

Book a free HR health check → See the staff systems

Contracts before first shifts Policies from day one Systems that scale with you

A cat at a newly opened veterinary practice

Day-one paperwork done

Founder time protected

01What makes it different

Every HR habit you skip at five staff becomes a project at fifteen. It is far cheaper to start right than to fix later.

New owners inherit their HR from wherever they worked last: a contract template from an old employer, a handbook half-remembered, a rota in whatever tool was nearest. It works, roughly, until the first dispute, the first resignation or the first inspection asks for paperwork that does not exist.

We give a new practice the spine in one project: employment contracts drafted for your actual roles, the policy set that matters on day one, and rota, time and holiday systems that are white-labelled to your practice and grow with it.

02The pressures

Where HR for new veterinary practices earns its keep.

Three pressures we see again and again, and what fixing them properly looks like.

Hiring fast, papering later

It is common to open with staff who have started work before anything is signed. Terms agreed verbally in a rush are exactly the terms that get disputed later. Contracts should be drafted, checked and signed before the first rota is published.

The borrowed handbook

A policy set copied from a former employer fits that practice, not yours, and usually was not veterinary-specific to begin with. The day-one set does not need to be huge. It needs to be yours, current and acknowledged.

Tools you will outgrow by year two

A spreadsheet rota and a paper timesheet work at five staff and quietly fail at twelve. Starting on systems designed for a practice means growth adds people, not chaos.

03The systems

White-labelled systems, mapped to your kind of practice.

Every system carries your practice's name and branding, not ours. These are the ones that matter most here.

Need something custom? →

Employment contracts: Contracts drafted for vets, RVNs, receptionists and managers before anyone starts, with terms you can actually stand behind.
Policy library: The day-one policy set, written for your practice, hosted where staff find it and acknowledged on record from the first week.
Rota system: A rota that looks professional from week one and still works when the team has tripled.
Holiday calculations: Entitlement set up correctly from the start, including part-timers, so year one does not end in a leave dispute.

04Questions

Asked by practices like yours.

When should we start on HR if we open in three months?

Now. Contracts and the day-one policy set take real drafting and review time, and they need to be signed before people start. The free HR health check maps exactly what your opening date requires.

What does a new practice actually need on day one?

Signed contracts for every role, a core policy set, a working rota, a way to record hours and holiday, and a habit of writing things down. That list is smaller than most checklists claim, but each item needs to be real.

We cannot afford a big HR project right now. What is the minimum?

Every engagement is scoped and quoted in writing, and we will tell you plainly what can wait. Contracts before first shifts is the one item we will always argue belongs before opening.

Will the systems still fit when we grow?

Yes, that is the point of starting on them. Rota, time capture, holiday and policies are the same systems our established practices run; a new practice simply starts them clean.

Book a free HR health check → Or call 0800 023 5232