Onboard a new hire and track their certifications

Before you begin

Have the signed offer, the start date, the craft or job classification, and the crew or team the person is joining. Know which certifications the role requires before day one: OSHA 10 or 30, a commercial driver's license, welding qualifications, confined space, competent person designations, and any state license the work depends on. A person who shows up to a job requiring a card they do not have is a wasted day for the whole crew.

Steps

1. Go to People → Employee Directory → New Employee and create the record with legal name, start date, classification, and pay type.
2. Assign the craft classification carefully. On prevailing wage work, the classification determines which wage determination rate applies, and a misclassification is the single most common certified payroll finding.
3. Launch the onboarding workflow. This generates the task list: I-9 verification, W-4 and state withholding, direct deposit, emergency contacts, handbook acknowledgment, safety orientation, and equipment issue. Each task has an owner, so payroll paperwork does not sit waiting on a superintendent.
4. Collect signed documents through the e-signature workflow rather than printing and scanning. The signed version lands on the employee record as the record of file.
5. Record certifications under the credential registry with issuing authority, certificate number, issue date, and expiration date. Attach the card image.
6. Assign the employee to a team or crew and to their projects. This determines whose time they show up under and which project their labor cost hits.
7. Create their platform login with the appropriate role if the person needs system access. Field roles get mobile time entry, daily reports, and photos without financial visibility.
8. Confirm the onboarding checklist is fully closed before the first shift. An open I-9 task on day two is a compliance problem rather than an administrative one.

What happens next

The employee appears in time entry, so their first shift can be clocked from the field the same day. Certifications with expiration dates generate advance notice ahead of lapsing, which gives you time to schedule the renewal rather than pulling someone off a job. Wage rate and classification flow into payroll processing and into certified payroll reporting on federal and state-funded work. Performance review cycles pick the person up on their next review date automatically.

Where the record lives

The employee record, every onboarding document with its signature audit trail, and the full certification history are retained under People → Employee Directory. Employment records carry long statutory retention periods, and the retention policy handles disposition, so a terminated employee's file does not vanish when their access is revoked.

Troubleshooting

Employee does not appear in field time entry: they are missing a team or crew assignment, or the start date is in the future. Time entry only shows people who are active as of the work date.

Certified payroll rejects the classification: the craft on the employee record does not match a classification on the applicable wage determination. Fix it on the employee record so it corrects going forward, then reissue the affected payroll weeks.

Certification shows expired but the person has a current card: the renewal was issued and never recorded. Add the new credential as a new entry rather than editing the expiration on the old one, so the history shows continuous coverage.