In many small and mid-sized companies the employment contract is still signed on paper, in the administration office: it is printed in duplicate, someone waits for the person to drop by, it is signed, scanned and filed. One administration team that tried to count the steps reached twelve, for a single document. Meanwhile the new hire is waiting for an email account, the payroll consultant is chasing the bank details and the pre-employment medical check still has no date. Employee onboarding is decided in the days before the start date, when everyone should already know what to prepare and what to sign.
How does employee onboarding work in an HR platform?
The new hire receives a personal login, fills in their personal record, enters their bank details and uploads documents before joining, while each department receives its own tasks with a deadline.
Compared with the paper procedure, what changes above all is the order of operations. In employee onboarding managed on a platform, personal data are no longer collected on the day of signing, verbally or on a form that someone will have to retype. The new colleague enters them step by step, in a record where the company has decided which fields are mandatory. Besides contact details, the record covers social security data, tax deductions and, where needed, the residence permit. Everything reaches the payroll consultant in the format of their payroll software, including later changes such as new bank details in the middle of the year.
Departments move in parallel. An onboarding template, built once, assigns each of them its own tasks: the computer and accounts to IT, the welcome meeting to the line manager, the documents to be prepared for signature to administration. Each task has a deadline and a status, so whoever coordinates the start can see what is missing without chasing colleagues by email. The same template, with different tasks, is used when the employment ends.
Confidentiality is set by folder: employees can see their own payslips, while identity documents and medical certificates remain visible only to the people who have to handle them.
A colleague was signing on the employee’s behalf
In a group of small service companies, around forty-five people in total with many fixed-term contracts, every contract was signed in the office, in front of the administration manager. Payslips and documents were scattered across a cabinet, a server and the drive of a personal computer. The rule of signing in person had a precise origin: a colleague had signed a document on behalf of the person concerned, and the administration only noticed by comparing the two signatures.
Staff less used to digital tools, starting with waiters and kitchen staff, raised the strongest doubt. The analysis showed that for them signing on a smartphone was easier than signing at the office. They sign with a finger, in the app they open with their own credentials. The onboarding flow also brought in the welcome email, the meeting with the manager and the request to IT for a computer and accounts. Medical checks and health card renewals come with an expiry reminder.
The most useful consequence concerns evidence. With signatures tied to a personal login, signing on a colleague’s behalf requires knowing their credentials, and every signature records the user, the time and the document. Control moves from comparing handwriting to safeguarding credentials, which is why the second authentication factor is worth switching on. New hires, for their part, no longer need to come to the office to sign their contract.
Insight: of all the steps in employee onboarding, the signature is the only one the company might have to produce in a dispute. Its level should be agreed with the payroll consultant before the rest of the flow is built.
Electronic signatures in digital onboarding: which type, for which documents
HR platforms include an electronic signature service for contracts, notices, payslips and communications, recording who signed, when and which version of the document.
The legal framework is the European eIDAS regulation, which distinguishes three levels of electronic signature: simple, advanced and qualified. In Italy the Digital Administration Code grants advanced and qualified signatures the status of a written form. For a simple signature, by contrast, suitability and evidential value are left to the free assessment of the court. The service built into the platform we use is presented by its producer as an advanced electronic signature compliant with eIDAS. It relies on the personal login, with an optional second factor, and issues a file certifying the signatory’s identity, the date of signature and the integrity of the document.
For the employment contract the final check lies with the payroll consultant, who knows which clauses must be signed in writing and which signature level they consider adequate. A disciplinary letter, a payslip receipt and the acknowledgement of a procedure carry different weight, and it is worth settling this before uploading the first template. Templates also accept variables such as name, tax code and start date, so the same document can be prepared for several people at once.
The payslip flow shows the operational saving clearly. In a company with around ten employees the consultant sent all the payslips in a single PDF. A colleague in accounts printed it, handed the payslips out and had them signed in duplicate. On the platform the same file splits itself. Each payslip reaches its recipient, identified by name, surname and tax code, and carries the employee’s signature and the owner’s countersignature.
What happens when a document is left unsigned
No system forces a person to sign. The document stays pending, the employee receives periodic reminders and the administrator an alert: how to proceed remains the company’s decision, exactly as with paper.
For urgent communications to shift workers, or for disciplinary notices, the right tool is the signature for acknowledgement, which notifies the administrator of the moment the employee signs. Simply opening the document leaves no trace. Sending can be limited to a group, for example to the staff of a single contract site.
Can the outcome of an interview trigger employee onboarding?
Yes: when the candidate moves to hired status, the data collected during selection enter the personal record and the onboarding flow starts on its own.
Selection follows its own stages, from CV to interview, from evaluation to offer. Team, location and manager, defined when the position is opened, pass to the new profile without being re-entered. Employee onboarding therefore starts from data that have already been checked, and administration does not retype what selection has already collected.
In companies with many new starters the benefit repeats with every hire. The HR manager of a company with around seven hundred employees described the problem plainly. Each new hire brings many documents with them, arriving at different times, and something is needed to keep track of what is still missing.
Digital onboarding deadlines that start with hiring
Part of employee onboarding lasts for months. Hiring starts the clock on medical checks, safety training and the issue of protective equipment and uniforms, each with its own date. The platform records them in the profile and alerts the administrator and the employee with the chosen notice, for example seven days. The training module links courses to skills, stores certificates and flags deadlines three months in advance.
There is a clear link with time and attendance management: there too the cost lies in data that nobody collected at the right moment.
| When | Who acts | What it produces |
|---|---|---|
| Before the start date | New hire | Personal record, bank details and documents uploaded |
| Before the start date | New hire and owner | Contract and notices signed and countersigned |
| First day | IT and line manager | Computer and accounts active, welcome meeting |
| First months | Administration | Medical check, training and equipment with expiry alerts |
What to agree with the payroll consultant before the first start date
- Which documents the new hire signs, and which level of electronic signature is adequate for each.
- Which data the platform collects, and in which format they reach the payroll software.
- Who sees payslips, who sees identity documents and who sees medical certificates.
- Which tasks belong to IT, the line manager and administration, and with how much notice.
- How people sign when they have no company smartphone or email address.
- Which individual deadlines start on the day of hiring.
In the HR projects we run, configuration takes two or three sessions with administration and one training session, open to all staff as well. Aesir Srl supports the company in mapping documents and flows and in connecting them with the ERP. Aesir is a Gold Partner of NTS Informatica for Business Experience, and with other ERPs the available connectors are used or new ones are built. The platforms we select process data in EU data centres, with certifications from the ISO/IEC 27001 family and requirements in line with NIS2, the same standards as our own infrastructure.
Common questions about digital onboarding
Can staff less familiar with digital tools sign?
Yes. They sign with a finger in the app, after logging in with their own credentials, and the project start includes a training session open to everyone. Explaining the platform to a new employee takes about ten minutes.
Should bank details be mandatory?
The company decides which fields are mandatory in employee onboarding. Asking for bank details before the start date allows the consultant to prepare the first payslip without reminders.
Does the payroll consultant have to change software?
The consultant keeps using their own payroll software. They receive the data in their format, or access the platform as an external user and download files when needed.
Does the new hire have to install an app?
The app is downloaded from the official stores, and the same area can be reached from a computer browser. Requests, document viewing and signatures work on both channels.
Let’s talk
Well-designed employee onboarding shows on the first day. The person sits down at a computer that is already configured and has no forms to fill in, because the contract was signed on a smartphone in the days before. Getting there means deciding in advance who does what, with which document and with which signature. The document side of the personnel file, including the protection of files when a colleague leaves the company, follows the logic described in the article on corporate document protection.
If you would like to explore the subject or assess the situation in your own company, you can fill in the form at the bottom of this page or write to support@aesir-tech.it: we will arrange a free consultation and start from your numbers.