Compensation for filling out required employment paperwork?

Mark M

Is it necessary or advisable to compensate a new employee for the time they spend filling out required employment paperwork such as: Tax forms, I-9 form, criminal history checks, personnel profile information & emergency contact info, Benefits enrollment, employee handbook review, policy review and sign off, possibly a video driving test, etc.? The time involved in this process may be up to 4 hours. This is all done prior to the acutal first day of work.

Don D

Its pretty 'grinchy' not to. These are things that are done as much for the employer's benefit as for the new employees. I consider this as actual hours worked. Lots of us do not pay for pre-employment orientation or pre-employment industrial training; but, I would certainly not invite the morale decline or bad taste that they would have by not paying them to fill out my forms.

Pork

It may not be necessary but it is a good idea. Therefore, once on the clock the individual is subject to W/C benefits and limitations in liability as it pertains to the world of work. it is the right thing to do! We have 11 remote sites and we actually go to the work site to enroll our employees. What a good service provided by a team playing HR. What a good morale booster and a very positive stroke for the HR person and the EE. The managers appreciate not taking a new employee away for this administrative concern. They don't seem to mind me taking them away from the work as long as the asset is still on the work site and earning money.

Rockie

I send a new hire packet out with the offer letter and copy of their job description, asking that the employee complete and bring this with them on the first day of employment,along with the required documentation for the I-9 form. This greatly reduces the amount of time spent completing paperwork on site from about 1 hour to around 15 minutes tops. This has worked out well for me and I've not had anyone complain about having to complete these ahead of time . This also ensures they bring proper documents with them. It's surpising how many people have lost their social security cards and don't have a clue as to alternate documentation. This saves the aggravation of having to chase people down for bits and pieces of information.