New Employee Onboarding Checklist

A new employee's first day gets plenty of attention — the desk, the login, the coffee. Payroll's version of the first day is the first pay run, and it only goes smoothly if the paperwork arrived before day one. Chasing a tax file number declaration after someone has already worked a week is how onboarding problems become payslip problems.

Before the first day: what to collect

• Signed contract or letter of offer, stating the employment basis (full-time, part-time or casual) and the award classification.
• Tax file number declaration — on paper or completed by the employee through ATO online services.
• Superannuation standard choice form, so the employee can nominate their fund.
• Bank account details, in writing, not over the phone.
• Evidence of the right to work in Australia, checked and kept on file.
• Emergency contact and any licences or tickets the role requires.

The documents you must give them

Every new employee must receive the Fair Work Information Statement, and new casuals must also receive the Casual Employment Information Statement — both at or around the start of employment; check the current Fair Work timing requirement. They are free downloads, and handing them over takes a minute. Payslips then follow every pay after that.

Super choice and stapled funds

If the employee returns the choice form, contributions go to the fund they nominated. If they do not, you generally cannot simply pay your default fund: the process is to request the employee's stapled fund from the ATO first, and only fall back to the default fund if no stapled fund exists — check the current process. The stapled fund rules exist to stop a new account being opened at every job, and skipping the check is how employees end up with duplicate accounts and employers end up with complaints and rework.

Setting them up in payroll and STP

The payroll record is where all the paperwork lands: employment basis, award classification and pay rate, tax treatment from the TFN declaration, super fund details, and leave accruals switched on correctly for the employment type. Single Touch Payroll reports from the very first pay event, so a setup error is not a private error — it is reported to the ATO every payday until someone fixes it. Ten minutes of care here saves hours later.

Probation and the award

Probation is a contract concept, and it does not switch off the safety net. Leave accrues from day one for permanent staff, notice rules apply, and the award minimum for the classification applies from the first hour. Classification deserves real attention at hiring: pick the wrong level and every subsequent pay compounds the error. When duties change later, revisit it.

What we commonly see go wrong

• Super paid to the default fund without a stapled fund request, creating duplicate accounts.
• New hires set up by copying "someone similar" in the software, inheriting the wrong classification or leave settings.
• Paperwork chased after the first pay, so early pays run on wrong tax treatment and later need fixing.
• The Fair Work Information Statement never given — an easy obligation missed purely for lack of a checklist.
• Casuals set up as part-time, or the reverse, so loading and leave accruals are both wrong from the start.

A worked example

As an illustration: a retail hire starts on a Monday with the paperwork "to follow". By the first pay run there is still no TFN declaration, so tax must be withheld at the highest no-TFN rate — check the current ATO requirement — and the take-home pay lands far lower than the employee expected. No super choice form came back either, and the employer pays the default fund without requesting the stapled fund; the employee, who had a fund from a previous job, now has a duplicate account. The first payslip triggers an unhappy conversation in week two — none of it about the job itself, all of it preventable by sending a one-page checklist with the contract.

When to get help

If onboarding currently lives in someone's memory, if past hires were set up by copying old records, or if you are not sure the stapled fund step is happening at all, it is worth building the checklist once and wiring it into how every hire starts. It is one of the cheapest fixes in payroll: a single page that prevents the most common STP, super and award problems before the first pay run ever happens.

What if a new employee has not returned their TFN declaration by the first pay?

You are generally required to withhold at the highest no-TFN rate until the declaration is provided — check the current ATO requirement. It is unpleasant for the employee and fixable afterwards, but far better avoided by collecting the form before the first day.

What is a stapled fund and when do I need to request one?

A stapled fund is the existing super fund linked to an employee that follows them between jobs. If a new employee does not nominate a fund, you generally request their stapled fund from the ATO and pay there, only using your default fund if no stapled fund exists — check the current process.

Does probation mean fewer entitlements?

No. Probation affects how the contract handles the early period, but National Employment Standards entitlements and award minimums apply from day one — leave accrues, notice rules apply, and the classification rate is the floor. Probation is not a discount period.