Hire an employee based in the U.S.
Last updated September 7, 2023
This article contains steps for hiring a U.S.-based employee. To see other hiring information, refer to our Hiring 101 guide.
In this article, we'll walk through every step in the onboarding process so you know what to expect when hiring a new employee or contractor in Rippling. Keep in mind that, depending on what Rippling services you've set up, you may only see a subset of steps. For any products that don't apply to your business (e.g., RPass, Device Management), Rippling will skip these steps in your hiring workflow.
Step-by-step process for onboarding a new hire in Rippling
The onboarding flow is designed to be self-led, but you can also follow the steps below to ensure you understand all the onboarding details. Please note that all visuals below are from a demo account and do not reflect actual employee data.
To onboard a new hire in Rippling:
- From the Rippling sidebar, click Hire .
- Tell us who you're hiring: You can choose a candidate from an applicant tracking or background check system, rehire a previous employee, or enter the new hire's details manually. Then, follow the flow to select the new hire and answer any relevant questions.
- Select the work location, entity, and employment type: For all selections except 1099/Contractor, you'll be asked to specify if the employee is exempt or non-exempt (from overtime). For Work location, Rippling will automatically pull up all your saved work locations . You can also set up a new location from here, or mark the employee as Remote.
- Choose the Role Details:
- Organizational details: Enter the employee’s department, level, teams, etc.
- Role details: Select the job title, manager, start date, and direct reports (if any).
- Start date: You can select a date in the past if the person has already started; just be mindful of employment verification timelines.
- Specify compensation: Enter the new hire's salary or an hourly wage. In addition to ongoing compensation details, you can also add a one-time payment, like a signing or relocation bonus. Learn more about how Rippling handles relocation and signing bonuses here .
- When adding compensation for the employee, you can enter gross base salary as well as the following payment types: target bonus, incentive plan, target commissions, and signing bonus.
- Additional employment details: Depending on the location you are hiring in, you can choose to include a non-compete and/or non-solicit in the employment agreement.
- Choose the agreements and documents you want to send the employee: If you have not yet set up the offer letter and agreement template, you can set those up at this time. If you don't want to send an offer letter through Rippling, you can also handle that yourself.
- Provide offer letter details: If you've chosen to send the new hire an offer letter through Rippling, we will ask for additional details on the employee's role to include in the letter. If you are not sending an offer letter, you won't see this step.
- Duties: This is the duty description that will be recorded in the offer letter.
- Number of shares: This is the number of shares that will be recorded in the offer letter.
- Offer expiry date: If you've chosen to send an agreement to the new hire that includes an offer expiry, select that date here.
- App provisioning: If your company integrates any third-party apps with Rippling and has automatically provisioned access to certain employee groups , we'll summarize which apps apply to this new hire and give you a chance to add/remove apps for them.
- RPass provisioning: If your company subscribes to RPass , we'll show you which RPass credentials will be shared with the new hire.
- Set up work email address: Specify whether the new hire should have a company work email address. Note: If you opt to not give access to work email and have third-party apps provisioned, Rippling will only create accounts for apps that support account creation using a personal email address.
- Choose device option: If your admin has enabled device ordering for new hires , the next step is to specify how you want to assign a device to the employee.
- If you select Yes, use Rippling to purchase or assign a device, you can either purchase a new device for the new hire, or you can assign an existing, unused device from your company inventory (Device Management subscribers only). Once you make your selection, click Continue and follow the prompts to finalize the order.
- If you select No, <new hire> already has a work device, or a work device will be obtained outside of Rippling, you'll proceed to the next step. You'll need to coordinate the device with the employee directly.
- If you select No, <new hire> will use a personal device or will not use a device, you'll proceed to the next step.
- Review the offer letter: If you've chosen to send an offer letter to the employee through Rippling, next we'll give you a preview of the new hire's offer letter based on the template you selected in step 6, above. You can send the letter as-is, or click the Edit button to modify the offer letter before sending it. Any offer letter edits you make here will apply to this new hire's letter, and will not affect your offer letter template.
- Review the details of your new hire: If you need to make any changes, use the Back button on the bottom left to return to any step in the hiring flow.
- [No action] Review the onboarding process for your new hire: On this page, you'll find all the next steps Rippling will take with the employee: Documents for them to sign, personal information we'll gather, and any other app set up (e.g., payroll & benefits).
If you've set up any custom fields to be collected from employees during onboarding, those will also be collected, but they aren't shown in this list.
Tip: You can modify the documents being sent or the info collected from new hires: To adjust which documents are sent to the new hire, open the Documents app > Rules tab, and adjust the rule settings (i.e., who should receive this document)for the appropriate template. To modify the info collected, open the Company Settings > Info Collected tab. For details, see our article on excluding info collected. If you do this before completing the hiring process (i.e., click Save and Exit on the top right, make updates at the links above, and then return to this new hire flow), any changes you make will be reflected for this hire.
- Send email notification: Rippling can email your new hire with their offer letter and invitation to set up their Rippling account, or you can send them the email yourself. On this page, you'll see a preview of the invitation email and have the option to edit this new hire's communication. Important: Rippling will send the email to the new hire immediately upon finishing the hiring flow; we do not support scheduling the offer email to send at a future time. If you select No, I will send this myself, make sure you copy the unique URL for the employee to create an account. If you choose to invite the new hire into Rippling yourself and later change your mind, you can still send an email invitation through Rippling. However, you will not have an opportunity to customize the email. For instructions on how to send the invitation outside of the onboarding flow, see our article on resending the onboarding link .
- Click Finish hiring. You're all set!
I've completed the onboarding process. What's next?
You can check the status of the new hire in your company directory. Open the HR Management sidebar > People app > find your employee > review the Status column. For details about all of the possible statuses and what they mean, see our article with definitions of the employee statuses in Rippling.
- Email sent: If you've already sent the offer letter email invitation, you will see the status Offer sent, waiting for signature.
- No invitation sent through Rippling: If you selected I will send this myself during the email invitation page, you will see a status Link sent to begin onboarding.
- This means Rippling has generated the offer letter but has not sent it to the new hire. Your new hire will not receive the offer letter unless you send it manually, or click the Resend button here. By clicking Resend, Rippling will send an email invitation to the new hire with a link to their personal Rippling account; from there, they can review and sign their offer letter, and start additional onboarding tasks (set up payroll, enter personal information, etc).
Lost the onboarding link for your new hire? See here for instructions on how to resend the onboarding link .
Note: All visuals in this article are from a demo account and do not reflect actual employee data.
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