Walkthrough: staff onboarding

This is a new starter, from offer accepted to first day ready: the paperwork you need back, the policies they have to read and sign, the induction they work through, and the bank and tax details payroll is waiting on. Each step links to the article that covers it in full.

It is a different job from contractor compliance, even though it uses the same parts. Compliance repeats forever on documents that expire. Onboarding is a burst of work per person that has to be finished before a date, and then it is done.

What makes onboarding different

It is per person. Ten starters in a month are at ten different stages, not one group moving together.
There is a deadline, their first day. Late means somebody standing in reception without a system login.
Most of it is not documents. It is reading, acknowledging and doing, and the acknowledgements are the part people forget to build.

Set up once

A portal per intake, not per person. "New starters, spring" works, and so does one per site or department. If starters arrive steadily rather than in batches, one ongoing portal per department works well. A portal's dashboard shows everyone on it at once, which is the view you want.

Your policies, as terms. Under Terms, add each thing a starter has to formally accept: the employment agreement, the code of conduct, the IT acceptable use policy. Keep them as separate documents, because each acceptance is pinned to the version accepted and you will update them on different schedules. See Terms and conditions.

Your induction, as a workflow. Under Tasks, write the induction as a workflow: the steps a starter works through in their first week. Its step text stays live, so improving the induction improves it for everyone still working through it. See Workflows and your procedures manual.

Statuses that match your process. Under Statuses: Offer accepted, Paperwork in, Induction done, Ready to start. This is what somebody outside the process reads to answer "is Tuesday's starter ready". See Statuses.

A request pack, once the starter list settles, so every new portal gets the same asks in one click. See Request packs.

Build the request list

A starter pack usually mixes four kinds of ask.

Documents. Upload requests for photo ID, qualifications, right-to-work evidence, and a driver's license where the role needs one. Tick Require expiry on anything that has one, so a visa or license keeps being watched after onboarding is finished.

Details. Bank details, tax ID, emergency contact, address. Ask with a Fields request for anything that belongs on the person's record permanently, so the answer lands on their contact rather than only inside this portal. See Custom contact fields.

Acceptances. A Terms request per policy. An acceptance records the exact version, the time, and their typed name or drawn signature if you require one.

Actions. A Tasks request built with Add from a workflow from your induction. The starter ticks steps as they go, so you can see they are three items in rather than only that they have not finished.

Use a Header, which can carry a description and an attached document, to break the list into parts or put something in front of them before they answer.

Creating requests for documents and info covers every kind.

Handle the role differences

A driver needs a license check. Someone with a company card needs the expenses policy. A manager needs the delegations policy nobody else does.

Put each of those in a Section, open Limit who sees this, and tick the people it applies to under Show only for specific people. Everyone else never sees it, and a short pack is the biggest single thing you can do for completion rates.

At volume, let a rule do the ticking: trigger Someone is added, action Give them a section. It matches the section by title, so the same rule works on every portal with a section of that name. See Automation examples for onboarding.

Send it, and let it chase

Add the starter to the portal and send their link, or build the rule that does it: trigger Someone is added, action Send their invite. Adding a starter then becomes one act. Put the deadline in the invite, because the page they open shows no date. See What your people see.

In Automations, two reminders are already switched on, and you switch on the others that suit a deadline:

Outstanding requests reminder, already on. Set it to a few days after the invite rather than the default 7, and shorten the 7 day wait before its second email.
Invite not opened, already on, which reports to you after 3 days by default. On onboarding this is the one that saves the day: it usually means a wrong address, and the person you think is filling in their pack has never seen it.
Document approved, so somebody who got it right first time hears back.
Everyone has finished, so you know the whole portal is clear without going to look.

See Automations.

Watch it, and step in early

Work from Requests. On an onboarding intake, look in this order:

Who has not opened their link. Act on it the day it appears, not the week before the start date.
What is waiting on you. A starter who submitted everything on Monday and is still unapproved on Friday is a delay you caused.
Who is stuck on one item. That is usually one specific confusion, and a phone call clears it.

See Requests screen for all portals, and Requests dashboard for one portal for the same view of one intake.

Finish cleanly

Approve everything, so the record says decided rather than received. See Reviewing and approving uploads.
Set the status to whatever you call ready, or let an automation do it.
Close the portal once no one on it will need to upload again. It drops out of the Onboarding list and the record stays. Closing also switches off every link on it, so if a visa or license on it will need renewing, leave it open or collect renewals on a portal that stays open. See Portal lifecycle.

What pays off most

Build the acknowledgements, not only the uploads. A signed acceptance with a version and a timestamp is worth more than a scan in a folder.
Keep each person's pack short with sections limited to the people they apply to.
Keep Invite not opened switched on. More onboarding delays come from wrong email addresses than reluctant starters.
Say why you are asking. A description on a request ("payroll needs this before the first pay run") gets a faster answer, and it doubles as the collection notice your privacy policy needs. See What to put in your own privacy policy.

Getting help

If you are moving an existing onboarding process across and want a view on how to shape the pack, email [email protected] with what you collect today and roughly how many starters a month.