Hiring Employees

New Employee Information

You've successfully navigated the hiring process and you're ready to welcome aboard a new employee. But your job isn't over yet. Now it's time to collect new employee information - and here are our tips for consolidating the process in a new employee information form.

When you get to the end of a long hiring cycle, the last thing you want to hear is that the employment process still isn't finished.

At the risk of being the bearer of bad news, we're hear to tell you that a hiring decision is only a mile-marker in the hiring process - not the finish line. There are still several requirements that need to be met, including the collection of new employee information.

If you're fortunate enough to have an HR department, you can offload most of the employee orientation and information collection activities. If not, you're going to have to do it yourself, and that means developing a streamlined set of forms that consolidates multiple employment requirements in a single document.

New employee information forms are tricky because after you've hired the applicant, some of the questions you couldn't ask during the interview are now fair game. But some are still taboo, so you'll need to be careful about making sure your new employee information forms ask the right questions while avoiding the wrong ones.

Contact information. You already have the applicant's contact information on record. But applicants aren't required to provide you with their address until they are hired so it's worth asking the applicant to confirm their home address, phone number, cell phone number and email address. Since you will retain the new employee information form in a personnel file, you'll be able to reach them in the event of a work emergency.
Personal information. The personal information section of the new employee information form is where things get a little sticky. Allowed data fields include the employee's birth date, marital status, spouse's name and spouse's employer. You can also include a voluntary racial identification field for reporting purposes, but questions about religion, sexual preference and disabilities are still prohibited.
Citizenship information. New employees are required to complete an I-9 form. This is a U.S. Citizenship & Immigration form that is used to verify that the individual's eligibility to work in the United States.
Tax reporting information. As the employer, you are within your rights to request the individual's full legal name and social security number. In fact, you will need this information to fulfill IRS reporting requirements.
Emergency contact information. Most new employee information forms collect emergency contact information that identifies a person or persons to call if the employee experiences an emergency situation in the workplace. It's legal to include a data field that clarifies the emergency contact's relationship to the employee.