Inside Rippling's 10-minute onboarding

Every time we hire at Rippling, the process is exactly the same.

Last week we onboarded four new recruits on a Friday morning. Within ten minutes, every app was unlocked, permissions were enabled, training was assigned and laptops were on their way. Not a single IT ticket was raised. No one chased an approval. 

All four walked through the door of our Dublin office on Monday and everything was already in place and ready to go. The only thing they had to figure out themselves on day one was where we kept the teabags in the kitchen.

A lot goes into a warm welcome on your first day. Being greeted at the door, the precious swag waiting at your desk, coffee breaks with new faces – but having all your devices, apps and training set up before you arrive really kickstarts the momentum. 

The faster people have what they need, the sooner they stop feeling like a guest and start feeling like they belong.

This probably won't come as a surprise, but Rippling runs on Rippling. And when you build the platform to support your own workforce, ‘slow’ stops being acceptable pretty quickly. Here are a few things I’ve learned along the way.

Where most companies get onboarding wrong

Many of us have been around long enough to know what bad onboarding looks like – and what it costs. The mismatch between what candidates expect and what they actually experience is still incredibly common, which is a big reason why 20% of staff turnover happens within the first 45 days. 

Accepted job offers usually trigger the same old scramble for approvals, equipment and login details. I remember spending two hours of my first day at a previous company on the phone with IT, locked out of my own Gmail because a temporary password wasn't working. Two hours. On day one. Not the flying start I had in mind.

See it enough times and you develop a sixth sense for onboarding gone wrong. It could be a slightly miffed look by week two, or the messages on Slack that get a little slower each day.

For HR teams, it can be just as draining. All that manually granting access, chasing approvals and following up on equipment quietly eats into the day while more important work piles up.

But here's the thing. When I think back to that two-hour call, there was no villain in the story. The IT guy was doing his best, HR had sent the welcome emails and someone had filled in the right form. It was just a disconnect between systems – and that’s fixable.

_{Source: To Retain New Hires, Spend Time on Onboarding, Harvard Business Review}

One system. Zero chasing.

So, what does our 10-minute onboarding setup actually look like?

The moment a new hire is added to Rippling, everything else follows automatically. Their role determines which apps they need, which permissions they get and which training modules are assigned. IT gets what they need to provision a laptop. Payroll is set up and compliance is covered.

Everything sits in one system, so there's no handoff between departments and employee data syncs in real-time across all functions. Nothing falls through the cracks because there are no cracks to fall through. What used to eat up the best part of a week now happens in minutes. Honestly, at first I was suspicious I’d overlooked something. Then it clicked. I hadn’t chased IT once, or booked a single meeting with payroll to go over new starter details. All of that had already been sorted quietly in the background, and I only get pinged when something genuinely needs my attention. Not a form-fill or a system nudge, just an actual human decision.

Beyond the first week

Of course, the ten minutes it now takes us to onboard an employee is just the start of a much bigger journey. 

The first week is all about foundations – the practical stuff, but also the unwritten stuff. The emoji etiquette. The coffee feedback. Whether 'my door is always open' is actually true versus being polite.

Once the basics are covered, the first month becomes about something more meaningful: connecting with colleagues and understanding how the team actually works. Not the org chart version – the real version. Then by 90 days, the nerves have settled, confidence is building and performance starts to take shape. 

Rippling supports that whole arc, not just the day one setup. I can schedule training modules to roll out progressively with the right learning at the right moment, rather than everything at once. Manager check-in prompts, performance review cycles and goal-setting workflows can all be triggered automatically as milestones are reached. If an employee moves teams, takes on new responsibilities or needs their access updated for any reason, our system adjusts in real time.

What Rippling can’t do for you

I want to be honest about something because I think it matters. 

What no system can do is make someone feel genuinely welcomed. It can't replace a good manager checking in, a team that makes space for a new face or a culture that delivers on what was promised in the interview. That part still takes human intention.

What Rippling can do is make sure the admin never gets in the way of it. Managers have more time to be present. HR has more headspace to be thoughtful. New hires get a first week that feels like a genuine welcome rather than a waiting room.

And in my experience, that's more than half the battle.