Managing Employee Onboarding in Jira

Employee onboarding is always a stressful process. The hiring manager wants to get the employee working as soon as possible. HR doesn’t want anything to happen until all of the legal the paperwork is complete; and the employee just wants to have the space and tools they need to start their new job.

You can use checklists and a few modifications to add functionality to the Employee Onboarding Jira Work Management project template. (I am with the team behind Issue Checklist for Jira, one of several checklist apps in the Marketplace.) Note that since employee onboarding requires a cross-functional team, this use case assumes that HR owns the project, and that members of the Facilities and IT teams can access the project.

Here’s what you’ll need:

  • Product: Jira Work Management

  • Apps: Issue Checklist for Jira

  • Workflow & Issue Type: HR Onboarding project template

  • Set-up Tasks:

    • Workflow modifications

    • Checklist Templates

    • Automation rule

Employee Onboarding Project Template

The Onboarding project template creates an Employee issue type and a five step workflow.

OriginalWorkflow.jpg

Unless your company is fully remote, there’s probably some facilities provisioning that needs to be done too. After all, the new employee will likely need a desk, keys to the office, access to parking, etc. Since Facilities and IT can both be working on their tasks at the same time, and we’ll be using checklists to track exactly what has and hasn’t been done, you don’t need to create a separate status.

Also note that the default workflow uses global transitions - meaning there is no imposed order on how an issue moves through the statuses. That’s probably not good practice. Do you really want to give someone access to your IT systems before they’ve signed the a confidentiality agreement and NDA? And what’s the point of having a REVIEW status if it can be bypassed? A modified workflow might look like this:

OnboardingWf.jpg

The modified workflow forces the issue to progress through the statuses in the correct order, ensures that the issue must be reviewed before it can be closed, and accommodates that fact that sometimes reviews fail and work needs to be repeated.

Set-up

There are a few more pieces we can put in place in order to optimize the project:

Workflow Condition

The modified workflow ensures that an issue must be reviewed before it can be closed, but doesn’t specify who does the review. To ensure that the issue isn’t closed without HR signing off, use the User is in group workflow condition to limit the users who can transition the issue from IN REVIEW to ONBOARDED to members of the HR group.

Checklist Templates

HR, IT and Facilities will each have multiple tasks as part of the onboarding process. Using checklists will ensure that all tasks get completed and will make it easy to see what’s been done and what hasn’t.

OnboardingLists.png

  • Since the HR paperwork is the first step, set it as the default template the Employee issue type.

Screen Shot 2023-02-21 at 12.19.18 PM.png

Automation Rules

Since it is set as the default, the HR tasks template will be added to the issue when it’s created. You can create an automation rule to add the IT and Facilities checklists when the issue reaches the PROVISIONING status:

  1. Ensure that the Apply checklist templates from issue labels global setting is enabled.

  2. Navigate to Project Settings > Automation.

  3. Click Create rule.

  4. Select Issue transitioned as the trigger.

  5. Set the From status as EMPLOYEE DOCUMENTS and the To status as PROVISIONING.

  6. Click Save.

  7. Click New action.

  8. Click Edit issue and select Labels as the field to be edited.

  9. Select or add labels that correspond with the name of the names of the IT and Facilities checklist templates.

  10. Click Save.
    Screen Shot 2023-02-21 at 12.31.50 PM.png

  11. You may also want to consider adding an action to notify the appropriate members of the Facilities and IT teams.

Issue Life Cycle

  1. The hiring manager creates an issue to let HR know they have a new employee ready to be onboarded.

  2. The checklist of HR tasks was automatically added to the issue. The HR team transitions the issue to EMPLOYEE DOCUMENTS and begins work on the paperwork.

  3. Upon completing the HR documents, the issue is transitioned to PROVISIONING. The Facilities and IT Checklists are automatically added, and the appropriate teams get to work.

  4. When the all of the checklist items have been completed, the issue is transitioned to IN REVIEW.

  5. HR reviews the issue to ensure that all of the onboarding requirements have been completed, then transitions the issue to ONBOARDED.

[OBT-3] Nancy Newhire - Jira.jpg

4 comments

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David Berclaz
Community Leader
Community Leader
Community Leaders are connectors, ambassadors, and mentors. On the online community, they serve as thought leaders, product experts, and moderators.
March 6, 2023

Thanks for sharing @Jennifer Choban.

That's a convenient solution for a simple onboarding process. When there is more complexity, I recommend using sub-issues for the different onboarding tasks, so that they can have different assignees and run in parallel.

Using Automation for Jira or ScriptRunner, sub-tasks can be created automatically as we move in the onboarding process.

Jennifer Choban
Marketplace Partner
Marketplace Partners provide apps and integrations available on the Atlassian Marketplace that extend the power of Atlassian products.
March 6, 2023

Thanks for the comment @David Berclaz . Yes, some items may be more complex. I should point out that along with your suggestions of using Automation or Scriptrunner, it's very easy to convert checklist items into their own issues. You can also enable statuses for checklist items if you want more nuance on their progress.

Prabhu Palanisamy _Onward_
Marketplace Partner
Marketplace Partners provide apps and integrations available on the Atlassian Marketplace that extend the power of Atlassian products.
June 20, 2023

Hi @Jennifer Choban @David Berclaz - We are currently building an application OnRamp, that simplifies Employee Onboarding and Offboarding. We are currently previewing to select users to get feedback. We'd love to show it to you and get your feedback.

Jennifer Choban
Marketplace Partner
Marketplace Partners provide apps and integrations available on the Atlassian Marketplace that extend the power of Atlassian products.
June 27, 2023

Sure @Prabhu Palanisamy _Onward_ .  I'll be happy to share it with our onboarding team.

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