New starter forms done from a phone, not the printer
A new person starts Monday, and Friday afternoon someone's at the printer running off a starter pack, half of which will come back with the same three boxes left empty.
Where it hurts
Taking someone on means a stack of the same forms every time: personal details, next of kin, bank details for payroll, right to work, the contract, the handbook sign-off. Printed, handed over, half filled in, chased for the missing bits.
The bank details get typed into payroll from a form that might have a digit wrong. The right to work copy sits in a drawer where it's no use if you're ever asked to prove you checked it. The handbook gets signed for, or doesn't, and nobody's quite sure.
It's a first impression too. A wad of dog-eared photocopies isn't the impression a decent small firm wants to make on day one.
What I'd build
I'd set up onboarding the new starter does themselves before they arrive: a form on their phone for personal, next of kin and payroll details, right to work documents uploaded, and the contract and handbook signed electronically, through Microsoft 365 or Google, whichever you're on. Everything lands filed against them, payroll details ready to hand over without retyping. Then a checking layer: an AI step reads each upload as it lands, confirms it's the right document, in date, and matching the name on the form, and flags anything short to whoever does the checks. The human still makes the right-to-work decision; the AI just makes sure everything's there and consistent before day one, not week two.
What changes
- New starters complete their own paperwork before day one
- Uploads checked and problems flagged while there's time to fix them
- Payroll and right to work details captured cleanly, no retyping
- A tidy first impression instead of a wad of photocopies
Related fixes
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