When most (if not all) organizations are hiring, employees are often asked to fill out and sign various new hire paperwork checklist forms. This signing of forms and contracts starts with the job offer and continues throughout employment. However, employers are finding themselves in circumstances where the traditional hard-copy signatures are becoming impractical; case in point, when rolling out new hire paperwork checklist for thousands of employees or conducting open enrollment for workers spread across the globe.
Remember, Human Resource departments greatly rely on the timely, correct, and complete turnaround of the required paperwork to meet their employees’ needs and industry requirements. And since compliance, flexibility and operational efficiency are vital in this industry, HR departments are significantly embracing e-signing services or technology to handle their documentation. This kind of technology provides a timely, secure, and legally binding way of signing business documents digitally, online. Electronic signatures basically, automate business processes, get rid of the paper trail and encourage competitive advantages within the HR industry.
Why HR departments should embrace e-signatures
Paperwork, especially new employee paperwork, is one of the most problematic issues for HR professionals and causes challenges in attaining their key goals for streamlining organizational processes, recruiting the top talent, and improving employee productivity. Here are ways in which e-signs can benefit HR departments and make sure new hire paperwork no longer slow down productivity.
Speed up recruitment – Electronic signatures can expedite your workflows by helping you get new hire paperwork signed by potential employees faster and more easily. Candidates can sign new employee forms or any other agreement related to the hiring process from anywhere at any time.
Ensure a positive employee experience – by embracing electronic signatures right from the recruitment phase; you show employees that the organization is digitally adaptive and progressive and keen to making processes undemanding for their workforce.
Ensure accuracy and compliance – When preparing new hire forms manually, discrepancies and mistakes are likely to crop up. These inconsistencies prove to be counter-productive. Moreover, it is important for HR teams to stay compliant with vital processes, laws, and audits. E-signatures make sure these discrepancies are minimized, especially when preparing vital documents such as new employee tax forms, are never missed.
Improve visibility – The HR process can be hard to track, particularly when dealing with many documents. There are numerous steps within each process. For instance, checking if employees have signed all the important new hire forms, or which stage they are at in having them signed can be tricky. With an e-signature solution, you can identify the stage of each document or form, if anything is omitted and even set auto-reminders if required.
New Hire Paperwork Checklist common in all organizations
Before new hires can be admitted into your company, you need to collect some info from them. Here are some vital new employee forms needed to fill out during the enrollment process.
Here is a list of other potential forms that new employees might be required to sign.
- State tax withholding forms
- Employee handbook acknowledgment form
- Emergency contact form
- Termination forms
- Performance review forms
- Form SS-5
- Banks account information form
- Benefits form
1. Form W-4
An employer is required to ask an employee to fill and sign an Employee’s Withholding Allowance Certificate (IRS Form W-4) to be aware of how much to withhold from an employee’s salary for purposes of federal income tax.
Form W-4 asks for employees’ details (e.g., social security number, marital status, address) and the type of allowances they are claiming. Employees can amend their claims on this form at any time throughout the year.
Form W-4 is, therefore, an imperative new employee tax form in any organization. Basically, without form W-4, it is not possible to run payroll.
2. Form I-9
Employment Eligibility Verification, Form I-9 is used to confirm that your employees are legally authorized to take jobs in the United States. It verifies both your work eligibility and identity.
Employers who do not abide by form I-9 completion rules can be penalized sternly. Intentionally hiring and continuing to recruit unauthorized employees can trigger very big fines, depending on the kind of violation.
Being an employer involves many responsibilities for the authorities. Accurately completing, retaining and producing this eligibility form upon request is one of these responsibilities.
3. Employee handbook acknowledgment form
Having an employee handbook acknowledgment form is very important. This form contains information like employment laws, payroll, employee conduct, and other vital business policies. Always, present an employee handbook acknowledgment document for employees to fill out and sign, verifying that they understand your company’s policies.
4. Bank account information
Most employees get paid via their bank accounts. The bank account info form might request the following details: employee name, the name of the bank, type of account and account number. The employee should provide all this information and must sign to verify that they wish to receive their salary via direct deposit.
5. Benefit forms
Some of the benefits as an employer you may want to offer your employees include health insurance, disability insurance, life insurance, and retirement plans. In the benefits package, your workers must deny or accept participating in these programs by filling out and signing a benefit form before enrolling them.
6. Emergency contact form
If the employee were to have an emergency situation or to be injured, you need to be aware of who to contact. The info on the emergency form must be updated when necessary.
7. Other contracts
Some employers demand workers to sign other kinds of contracts guiding the employment relationship, including NDA, non-compete agreements, and arbitration agreements.
How Foxit eSign can help you in New Hire Paperwork Checklist
Hiring is fundamental to your business growth, and Foxit eSign makes getting an employment form completed easier than ever. You can use this service to obtain signatures for an array of documents which is much convenient and faster compared to using traditional paper accessories. More so, when you sign up for Foxit eSign, you can request various HR-related templates starting from a new hire checklist to new employee tax forms. You can use these templates to create bespoke forms and eventually, get them electronically signed in no time.
In short, Foxit eSign helps HR departments partake in vital functions like recruiting and onboarding so that they can save time, minimize errors, increase compliance and enhance employees’ experience.
Sign up now for e-Signatures 14 days free trial.
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