Onboarding a new employee is a relay race between departments. HR has the hiring details and payroll setup, IT has the devices and accounts, and the new hire can’t start well until both have finished their legs. When the baton is passed by form and email, someone always has to remember it’s their turn.
This is how OrangeDot replaced a patchwork of onboarding forms and handoffs at a national preservation nonprofit with a single monday.com workflow that HR and IT share, and built it so the same data can carry through to offboarding.
What We’ll Cover
- About the client and its onboarding process
- Challenge 1: Onboarding information was spread across multiple forms
- Challenge 2: Every handoff between HR and IT depended on someone knowing it was their turn
- How OrangeDot built one shared onboarding workflow
- The impact: one record, two teams, one connected employee lifecycle
About the Client
This client is a national preservation nonprofit with employees across multiple departments, locations, and affiliated organizations. It needed a better way to coordinate employee onboarding between Human Resources and IT.
Bringing on a new employee required several teams. HR managed hiring information, payroll setup, and orientation, while IT was responsible for devices, user accounts, email, security groups, software access, and other technical requirements. The process also varied by employee: full-time employees, seasonal staff, interns, remote employees, site-based employees, and staff working within affiliated organizations could each require a different combination of equipment and system access.
Two Problems Compounding Each Other
The onboarding information was scattered across forms, and the handoffs between teams were manual in both directions.
HR used a computer build form and a separate LAN request to communicate new-hire requirements to IT. Depending on the employee, teams needed to capture information about equipment, software, shared drives, email access, shipping locations, departmental systems, security groups, and other technical needs.
The organization also wanted to simplify the process itself rather than simply recreate every existing form and step in a new system.
Two forms asking overlapping questions meant the same new hire was described twice, and nobody had a single record of what that employee needed.
Once IT completed its portion of the process, information had to make its way back to HR so onboarding could continue. IT needed to communicate details such as the employee’s new email address and login information. HR then needed to complete additional setup, including payroll information, before IT could finish certain remaining steps.
The process relied on team members knowing when their portion was ready to begin and manually passing information from one person to another. The IT team specifically called out the benefit of eliminating an additional email and having everything available in one place.
When onboarding runs on email, progress depends on memory. Each team is waiting on a message that may or may not have been sent.
The Solution
OrangeDot worked with HR and IT to map the onboarding process from the moment an offer was accepted through the employee’s first day, then rebuilt it as one shared workflow in monday.com.
Two forms combined into one
Instead of maintaining a separate computer build sheet and LAN request, OrangeDot combined the information from both into a single monday.com form. The data flows directly into the onboarding board, giving HR and IT one central record for the new employee.
Conditional questions for different employee types
The form captures department, location, start date, employee type, equipment needs, mailbox access, mailing lists, software requirements, system access, and shipping information. Questions appear conditionally depending on the employee’s needs, avoiding unnecessary fields for people who don’t require specific equipment or access.
IT starts provisioning from a complete request
Once the request enters monday.com, IT has what it needs to begin provisioning, including creating the user account, assigning security and distribution groups, preparing equipment, configuring software, and generating the employee’s work email and login information.
A Send to HR action instead of another email
When IT completes its initial setup, a Send to HR action passes the required information back to HR and triggers a notification. The employee’s onboarding information stays connected to the same record rather than traveling in a standalone email.
Automatic notifications for cross-team dependencies
Once HR adds the employee’s associate ID, IT is automatically notified that the information is available, rather than repeatedly checking for an update. The team tested this notification during implementation.
A shared view of what’s done and what’s next
Both departments can see what has been completed, what information is still outstanding, and who needs to take the next action.
Extending the Workflow Through Offboarding
OrangeDot also designed the onboarding architecture with the opposite end of the employee lifecycle in mind. Much of the information collected when an employee joins becomes valuable again when they leave: IT needs to know which accounts, distribution groups, systems, equipment, and licenses must be removed or recovered. The proposed offboarding structure connects back to the data already collected during onboarding, so teams have a starting point for removing access and completing departure-related tasks. The organization was also evaluating moving its separation process away from a PDF-based form and manual checklist so HR tasks, forms, and departure information could be managed together.
The Impact
The new workflow gave HR and IT a shared system for managing a process that previously relied on multiple forms and manual handoffs.
One Intake Instead of Two Forms
Two separate onboarding forms were consolidated into one centralized intake, reducing duplicate information collection and giving both teams access to what they need from the same employee record.
Notifications in Place of Manual Back-and-Forth
Automated notifications replaced parts of the manual exchange between departments. IT can signal when account setup is ready for HR, and information entered by HR can automatically alert IT that the next step is ready.
Continuity Across the Employee Lifecycle
Instead of treating onboarding as a series of isolated administrative tasks, the organization now has a connected process that can follow an employee from initial setup through future offboarding, giving HR and IT a clearer, more consistent way to manage the employee lifecycle.
Two forms replaced by one conditional intake · HR and IT working from one shared employee record · automated notifications at each cross-team handoff · onboarding data ready to feed an offboarding workflow
FAQs
Can monday.com handle onboarding for different employee types in one workflow?
Yes. A single monday.com form with conditional logic can adapt to full-time employees, seasonal staff, interns, remote and site-based employees, and staff at affiliated organizations. Questions appear only when they apply, so each hire’s request captures the equipment and access they need without cluttering the form for everyone else.
How do you coordinate HR and IT tasks that depend on each other?
Build the dependencies into the workflow. When IT finishes initial setup, an action sends the information to HR and notifies them. When HR adds information IT is waiting on, such as an associate ID, IT is notified automatically. Each team sees the same record and knows when it’s their turn without anyone sending a separate email.
Do we have to recreate every existing onboarding form in monday.com?
No, and usually you shouldn’t. Moving to a new system is a chance to simplify. In this engagement, two overlapping forms were combined into one, so the new process is leaner than the one it replaced rather than a copy of it.
Can onboarding data be reused for offboarding?
Yes. The accounts, groups, systems, equipment, and licenses assigned during onboarding are exactly what IT needs to remove or recover at departure. Designing the onboarding record with offboarding in mind lets that data move into an offboarding workflow instead of starting from scratch.
Final Thoughts
Onboarding is one of the few processes every employee experiences and almost every department touches. Replacing multiple forms and email handoffs with a single shared record gave HR and IT a clearer, more consistent way to work together, and a foundation that extends naturally to the end of the employee lifecycle.
If your HR and IT teams are still coordinating onboarding through forms and email, we can help you build a workflow that connects them. Talk to an OrangeDot expert →