We Onboarded 47 Employees Last Year - 23 Had Missing Tasks on Day One 🔥

HR coordination nightmare. New hires starting without critical systems access. First impressions suffering.

Built n8n automation creating department-specific checklists automatically.

THE BREAKING POINT:

Operations hired 5 employees in one month. Each needs different setup. Engineer needs GitHub and AWS. Sales rep needs CRM and territory. Marketing coordinator needs design tools and social media access.

HR tracking in spreadsheet. Updates manual. IT doesn't check spreadsheet daily. Facilities working from different list. Manager sending emails to coordinate. Tasks falling through gaps.

Engineer arrives. No AWS credentials. Can't access repositories. First week wasted waiting for access. Sales rep starts. CRM access missing. Can't contact customers. Marketing hire begins. Design tools not provisioned. Can't create content.

23 out of 47 new hires experienced missing tasks. Equipment delays. Access issues. Desk problems. Poor onboarding experience.

THE n8n WORKFLOW:

8-node automation monitoring Google Drive folder for onboarding documents. New hire paperwork uploaded. System processes automatically.

Document extraction pulls employee data automatically from uploaded documents. Name, email, position, department, manager, start date, benefits status, accommodations, emergency contacts.

Checklist generator builds role-based task lists. Base tasks for everyone. Department-specific tasks added - Engineering gets technical access, Sales gets CRM and training, Marketing gets creative tools.

Timeline calculator sets due dates from start date. Background check 10 days before, equipment 7 days before, desk 3 days before.

Urgency engine marks overdue, urgent (2 days), soon (5 days). Readiness score calculated automatically.

Google Sheets logs all employees. Manager email shows summary. Slack alerts for urgent items or team announcements.

DEPLOYMENT METRICS:

47 new hires. 12 months.

Task completion: 23 incomplete → 0 incomplete

First-day readiness: 51% → 100%

Manager coordination time: 4 hours per hire → 15 minutes

Department compliance: inconsistent → systematic

Equipment availability: 100% ready and available on employee day one

Access provisioning: 100% completed before employee start

Background checks: 100% on-time completion

Benefits enrollment: 100% deadline compliance

Manager receives notification 10 days before start. Reviews checklist. Sees IT equipment ordered, Facilities desk assigned, HR background completed, benefits processed. Confidence in readiness.

Department-specific automation prevents oversight. Engineering hires never missing technical access. Sales hires always have CRM ready. Marketing hires equipped with creative tools.

Templates: n8n

How many onboarding tasks do you currently track manually across departments?

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