Stop onboarding with a document nobody opens

The instructions sit on the step, not in a folder

Every stage of onboarding carries its own written instructions, visible on the stage while the work is being done. Offer, acceptance, paperwork, equipment, first day, first week, probation review.

Whoever is doing that stage reads what that stage needs, at the moment they are doing it. Nobody has to remember which document to open, because the document is the step.

When something changes, you change it in one place and everyone doing that stage from then on sees the new version.

Paperwork that cannot be forgotten

Make the signed contract, the tax declaration, the superannuation choice and the right-to-work check required fields on the paperwork stage. The new starter cannot reach 'first day' until they are all there.

This matters most for the things that are legally required and quietly skipped. A missing form is a compliance problem nobody notices until an audit, and a stage that refuses to advance is the cheapest control available.

Photograph a licence or a certificate and the text comes off it into the record, scanned in Sydney rather than overseas.

The right people told at the right time

Set an action to run when a starter reaches a stage. Create a task for whoever needs to do something, with an assignee and a due date, or send a templated email that fills in the starter's own details.

So IT gets told to order the laptop when the offer is accepted rather than the night before. Payroll gets told when the paperwork is complete. Nobody has to remember to forward anything.

Knowing when someone is stuck

Give the stages target days. A starter sitting past the target is flagged on their record, appears in the weekly summary and emails whoever owns them the next morning.

It is a small thing that catches the specific failure onboarding always has: a person waiting on somebody who does not know they are waiting.