Remote Onboarding Made Easy: Digital Signatures, Paperless Forms, & More

As businesses shift to a more remote-first environment, remote onboarding has become an essential part of the employee experience. Traditional methods of onboarding—complete with stacks of paper forms, scanning, and multiple trips to the printer—are no longer efficient or feasible. As teams become increasingly distributed, the need for a streamlined, digital approach to onboarding has never been more critical.

However, many companies still struggle with the administrative burden of processing paperwork, ensuring compliance, and managing delays. With digital signatures, paperless forms, and automated workflows, businesses can overcome the common roadblocks that slow down the remote onboarding process, all while reducing the workload for HR teams.

One platform that can help companies achieve these goals is Blueink, a DocuSign alternative that offers secure, legally binding digital signatures and a comprehensive paperless onboarding solution. Blueink's HR features are specifically designed to eliminate manual administrative tasks, ensure compliance, and simplify remote onboarding.

What Is the Remote Onboarding Process?

The remote onboarding process is how companies integrate new employees who are working from a different location. While the process typically involves multiple steps, remote onboarding takes these tasks to a virtual environment.

Here’s a step-by-step breakdown of what that process typically looks like:

1. Preboarding Paperwork

Before the employee starts, they’ll receive and complete essential paperwork, such as:

• Offer Letters: An official job offer outlining the terms of employment.
  
  
• Tax Forms: Documents like W-4 and I-9 forms in the U.S., which are required for tax purposes.
  
  
• Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs): Ensuring that confidential company information is protected.

Traditionally, these documents would need to be printed, signed by the employee, and scanned or mailed back to the HR team. This can cause delays and create unnecessary friction. With remote onboarding, these documents are often sent via secure HR platforms and esignature tools, ensuring a more seamless workflow.

2. Identity Verification

For legal and compliance reasons, remote employees often need to verify their identity before they can begin work. In the U.S., for example, the I-9 form verifies the identity and employment eligibility of new hires. This step typically requires employees to provide copies of documents like their passport or driver’s license. In traditional systems, this would require employees to mail or email scanned copies, causing delays and potential security risks.

Fortunately, digital identity verification tools can streamline this process. Platforms like Blueink allow companies to securely verify the identity of new hires remotely, helping them meet legal requirements quickly and securely.

3. Signing Employee Onboarding Forms

Once the paperwork is completed, the next step is having employees sign various onboarding documents. These might include:

• Direct Deposit Forms: Allowing employees to set up their payment method.
  
  
• Company Policies: Ensuring new hires understand the company’s values and operational guidelines

Instead of relying on paper signatures, which can be time-consuming and prone to errors, companies can implement digital signature solutions. This allows new hires to sign documents from anywhere, at any time. Aside from saving time, esignature solutions ensure that the process is secure, legally binding, and compliant with industry regulations.

4. HR Training & Access Setup

The next step in the remote onboarding process involves setting up the employee with the tools and systems they need to do their job. This includes:

• Training Materials: Sharing online resources to help the new hire understand their role and company culture.
• Access Setup: Ensuring the new hire has access to the appropriate systems, including email, collaboration tools, and security credentials.

HR teams can use digital tools to automate much of this process, ensuring that new hires are seamlessly onboarded.

5. Welcome Package

In a traditional office environment, it’s common to greet new employees with a physical welcome package containing company swag or essential office supplies. While remote onboarding doesn’t offer the opportunity to hand over a physical package in person, many companies have found creative ways to send virtual welcome packages or ship physical items directly to the employee’s home address.

A digital welcome package might include a personalized email with links to important resources, a video message from the CEO, and information about the company’s values and mission. This helps remote employees feel welcomed and included despite not being physically present.

While each step is critical, traditional remote onboarding workflows can present challenges, especially in terms of paperwork. Printing, signing, and scanning documents can delay the process, leading to errors and administrative frustration. Digital signatures and paperless forms help resolve these issues by allowing employees to complete everything electronically, with little to no paperwork involved.

The Role of Digital Signatures in Remote Hiring

Digital signatures play a pivotal role in modernizing the remote hiring process. When hiring remotely, businesses need a way to securely collect legally binding signatures from new hires—without the need for printing and scanning paper documents. 

By using digital signatures, companies can:

• Save Time: Incorporating digital signatures into the remote hiring process can dramatically reduce the amount of time spent on administrative tasks. No longer will HR teams have to manually track down signed documents, scan copies, or chase employees for missing paperwork. Instead, everything can be handled electronically, reducing the overall time it takes to finalize new hires. 
• Reduce Compliance Risk: Traditional paper-based signatures can be subject to delays, errors, or mismanagement, leading to compliance risks. Platforms like Blueink offer legally binding digital signatures and tamper-proof audit trails that record every action taken during the signing process. This gives both employers and employees a clear record of who signed what and when, ensuring both compliance and accountability.
• Ensure Legality: In many countries, digital signatures are legally recognized as equivalent to traditional pen-and-paper signatures. In the United States, for example, the ESIGN Act and UETA (Uniform Electronic Transactions Act) provide the legal foundation for the use of digital signatures in business transactions, including employee onboarding. Similarly, in Europe, the eIDAS Regulation ensures that digital signatures comply with strict security standards. These laws protect the integrity of the documents and guarantee that they are legally binding. 

At Blueink, every completed document includes a Certificate of Evidence that provides irrefutable proof of authentication, identity verification, and a detailed audit trail to ensure the signed documents maintain the highest level of legal enforceability.

• Improve Security: By using a secure platform like Blueink, businesses can ensure that their digital signatures meet the necessary legal standards and are protected by advanced security protocols, including encryption and authentication features. With this, electronic signatures improve HR data security and ensure compliance with modern digital standards.

Employee Onboarding Forms You Can Digitize

Employee onboarding forms are essential documents that must be completed before a new hire can officially begin their role. However, processing these forms through traditional methods can be time-consuming and prone to errors. Fortunately, employee onboarding forms can easily be digitized, allowing for a more seamless, efficient experience for both HR teams and new hires.

Some of the most common forms that can be digitized include:

• Offer Letters: The official job offer document can be easily signed online with digital signatures, eliminating the need for physical printing and scanning.
• Tax Documents (W-4, I-9): Required for tax purposes, these forms can be completed and signed online, ensuring compliance with tax regulations and minimizing errors.
• Direct Deposit Forms: Employees can submit their direct deposit information digitally, ensuring prompt and secure payment processing.
• Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs): Protecting confidential company information is essential, and having employees sign NDAs digitally ensures that these important documents are stored securely.
• Employee Handbook and Company Policies: Employees can sign acknowledgment forms digitally, indicating that they have read and understood the company’s policies and guidelines.

By automating the collection and signing of these forms, businesses can ensure that no paperwork is lost or delayed and that all required documents are completed on time. Platforms like Blueink allow businesses to template and automate the sending of these forms, further reducing the administrative burden.

Benefits of Going Paperless with Onboarding

The advantages of transitioning to a paperless onboarding process go far beyond convenience. Going digital allows businesses to streamline their entire onboarding workflow, from the completion of forms to the collection of signatures, all while maintaining a secure, compliant environment.

Here are some of the key benefits:

• Faster Processing & Approvals: With paperless employee onboarding, companies can speed up the process by eliminating the need for physical document exchange. Everything is done electronically, allowing documents to be signed in real-time.
• Less Printing & Scanning: A paperless environment reduces the need for physical resources such as printers and scanners, saving time, money, and the environment.
• Lower HR Admin Workload: Automation features such as bulk sending and auto-reminders free up HR teams to focus on more strategic tasks, rather than administrative ones.
• Easier Auditing & Compliance: Digital records are far easier to store, search, and audit than physical files, helping businesses stay compliant with data privacy regulations and simplifying internal audits. At Blueink, we also provide comprehensive audit trails and Certificates of Evidence to make it easier to audit and ensure compliance.

All of these benefits directly translate into greater efficiency and improved employee experience, which is essential for remote teams. By going paperless, companies can provide a smoother onboarding process for their employees, regardless of their location.

Features That Make Blueink the Ideal Remote Onboarding Tool

As businesses increasingly adopt paperless employee onboarding, finding the right platform to manage these processes becomes crucial. Blueink offers a comprehensive suite of features that cater specifically to the needs of remote onboarding. These features improve efficiency while ensuring that companies remain compliant with all legal and regulatory requirements.

Here are some key features that make Blueink the ideal tool for remote onboarding:

Legally Binding Digital Signatures with Full Audit Trails

All digital signatures captured on Blueink are legally binding and supported by robust audit trails and Certificates of Evidence. This ensures that each signature is properly documented and verifiable.

Mobile-Friendly Signing Experience

With an increasing number of employees working from mobile devices, Blueink provides a seamless, mobile-friendly signing experience. This flexibility allows employees to complete their paperwork wherever they are—whether at home, in a coffee shop, or while traveling.

Bulk Sending for Hiring in Volume

For businesses conducting high-volume hiring, Blueink offers the Bulk Send feature, making it easier to send out multiple forms and contracts to candidates simultaneously. This feature can help onboard several remote hires at once.

Auto-Reminders to Reduce Delays

One common challenge with remote onboarding is the delay caused by employees forgetting to sign or complete required forms. Blueink helps mitigate this issue with auto-reminders, ensuring that forms are submitted on time without HR having to follow up manually.

ID Verification

For additional security, Blueink offers ID verification features. This ensures that employees' identities are verified before they can sign any forms, making the onboarding process even more secure.

Dashboard Tracking

HR teams can easily track the status of all documents in real-time through Blueink’s intuitive dashboard. This feature ensures that no documents are lost in the shuffle and allows HR departments to monitor progress at every step of the onboarding process.

SMS Delivery

With SMS delivery, employees receive a text message with a link to sign their documents, making the process even more accessible. This feature reduces friction and increases the likelihood that documents will be signed on time. In fact, we witnessed a 94% open rate within nine minutes and a 45% higher response rate than email.

SmartLink Forms

Blueink also provides SmartLink Forms that allow new hires to initiate esignature workflows themselves. By sending them a SmartLink URL or embedding a signing form on your website, you can automate the process and reduce unnecessary manual work.

These features make Blueink an invaluable tool for businesses looking to improve their remote onboarding process. By reducing manual intervention and automating key aspects of onboarding, Blueink ensures that companies can onboard remote employees quickly, securely, and efficiently.

Ready to Simplify Your Remote Onboarding Process?

As companies continue to adapt to remote work environments, remote onboarding will remain a critical aspect of business operations. However, traditional onboarding methods are no longer sufficient to meet the needs of today’s remote workforce. With digital signatures, paperless forms, and automated tools, businesses can significantly improve the onboarding process, providing a better experience for new hires and HR teams alike.

If you're looking to streamline your onboarding process and provide a seamless experience for your remote employees, consider using Blueink. Its suite of features can help you onboard new hires quickly and efficiently.

Ready to give it a try? Start your free trial with Blueink today and experience the benefits of a fully digital onboarding process. Say goodbye to paper forms and hello to a faster, more secure way to onboard remote employees.

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