New starter and HR admin
Between the offer and the first day someone has to issue a contract, get forms back, chase references and checks and order a uniform or a laptop, and the small jobs pile up. This role prepares and chases all of it, so a starter arrives to a complete file and a manager who was expecting them.
The role in brief
Prepares the offer pack from your templates, chases forms, references and checks, lines up equipment and training, and builds the personnel file for approval.
Your HR system, such as Breathe, your payroll software and the mailbox new starters reply to.
The HR manager, office manager or practice manager. Offers, contracts, check results and anything about a person's pay or suitability go to them.
Files complete on day one, days from offer to complete file, and items still open at start.
Who gets a new starter ready today
Where there is no HR department it is the office manager, a practice manager or whoever made the hire. They issue the contract, send the forms, chase the P45 and the references, order the kit and tell payroll, between everything else. In Great Britain the principal written statement of terms is due on the first day, and HMRC must be told on or before the first pay day.
Paperwork that trails the start date
A starter with no P45 and no starter checklist cannot be given the right tax code, and a written statement issued in week three is already late. Together these small gaps mean a first payslip that is wrong and a file that does not show what was agreed.
A check assumed, never done
Right to work checks are due before day one; each illegal worker can cost an employer up to £60,000. Roles may need a driving licence or registration verified, or a DBS check (Disclosure Scotland or AccessNI elsewhere), which never officially expires. Each needs a person, and gets missed when everyone assumes someone else did it.
A first day with nothing ready
The starter arrives to no login, no uniform, no rota and nobody expecting them. The manager loses the morning finding kit and the starter spends it waiting. Where people join every week, as on a cleaning contract, the same scramble repeats with every starter.
From the offer to the first day
The paperwork is the agent's to prepare, send and chase. A manager approves every offer and contract, and a person carries out every check. Your own offer templates and starter forms set what it sends, and are agreed with you first.
Offer pack
Fills your offer letter and written statement templates with the agreed pay, hours, place of work and start date, and sends them for signature in whatever you use today.
The offer and its terms. A manager approves every letter and contract before it goes.
Forms and checks
Sends the starter forms, asks for the P45 or starter checklist, requests references by email, gets the DBS application under way where the role needs one, and chases each one.
The right to work check, any phone call to a referee, and what a reference or certificate means.
First day
Requests the uniform, equipment and logins, books the induction and any training the role requires, and tells the line manager what is still missing before the start date.
Whether someone starts with an item still open.
Personnel file
Puts the signed contract, forms, check records and certificates in one file, prepares the payroll record, and diarises the probation review and any expiry dates.
Payroll's approval of the new record, and every probation decision.
Files complete on day one
The share of starters whose file held every document on your list by their first day. Reviewed with you each month.
Days from offer to complete file
Counted for every starter, from the day the offer is accepted to the day the last item on the list comes back.
Items still open at start
The open items for each starter on their first day, and who each one is waiting on: the starter, a referee, a manager or a supplier.
Facilities management and cleaning
Cleaners and site staff joining every week, with starter packs, uniform, COSHH training and a DBS check where the client asks for one.
Dental practices
A new dental nurse's file in England: GDC registration, indemnity, and the recruitment information CQC requires a provider to hold for each person employed.
Logistics, freight and removals
Driver files: the licence check code, which lasts 21 days, and Driver CPC evidence gathered alongside right to work, before the first run.
Questions owners ask
Does the agent decide who we hire or what we offer?
No. A person makes every employment decision: who gets an offer, on what terms, whether a reference is good enough, whether probation is passed. The agent works from the decision you have made. It fills your templates, sends what you approve, chases what is missing and tells you where each starter stands.
Can it write our employment contracts?
It fills in the templates you already use, written by you or your HR adviser, with the details agreed for each starter. It does not draft terms of its own, and nothing goes to a starter until a manager has approved it. If a hire needs something the template does not cover, it asks.
Will it work with our HR and payroll software?
That is the first thing scoping settles. Some HR systems publish a way for other software to connect and some do not. Where there is a way in, the agent works through the route the maker publishes. Where there is none, the agent prepares the record and a person keys it.
What about starters and referees who only answer the phone?
The agent works in writing, by email and in your team's chat. It does not make phone calls. A starter who has not replied, or a referee who needs a call, is passed to your team with a list of exactly what is still missing, so the call is short and nobody has to dig for the file first.