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by Katie Culliton, Editor, CalChamber
Recruiting, hiring and onboarding employees can be daunting and time consuming. California laws impact all aspects of the process — from what you can and cannot post on job advertisements to onboarding new hires. When any step in the hiring process is done incorrectly, you can risk potentially expensive fines and/or lawsuits.
And the hiring process has a lot of complicated steps — requiring knowledge and awareness of numerous laws! Even after a new hire has accepted your job offer and passed all the pre-employment job screenings, onboarding new employees — including all new hire paperwork — is an important process both because it’s your new hire’s first impression of your company and you must provide legally required information to each new hire.
Your business counts on your hiring and orientation process to stay in compliance with state and federal laws. Let’s walk through the basics and go over some of the invaluable CalChamber resources available to your hiring team along the way.
HR professionals and anyone responsible for hiring within an organization must be aware of what they can and cannot ask and do during the hiring process.
For example, you should first post the job advertisement and review applications and resumes — making sure to follow all required laws and regulations, like adding any required pay scale information and using non-discriminatory language, including avoiding questions about protected classes (e.g., date of birth, marital status, etc.).
After selecting job applicants for interviews, you should then prepare supervisors and managers for the types of questions they can and cannot ask the candidates and possibly even create skills demonstrations — or “try outs” — that don’t legally require you to pay applicants for their time.
Before making a job offer, you can conduct employment reference checks (with authorization from the applicant first), making sure to stick with questions directly related to job performance and avoiding indirectly obtaining impermissible information on salary history or protected classes. Keep in mind that until a job offer has been made, you cannot do any other pre-employment screenings, such as criminal background checks, drug testing or medical exams.
If, after making the job offer, you decide to conduct a criminal background check, you must follow California’s very specific “Fair Chance Process,” which includes making an individualized assessment and providing applicants with the correct written notices. You can also require pre-employment drug testing, but you cannot discriminate against applicants or employees for off-duty cannabis use.
It's a lot to keep track of! If you want a refresher or to make sure you’re up to date on recruiting and onboardings key legal requirements, register for our upcoming “Filling in the Gaps: Pitfalls in Hiring and Onboarding New Employees” webinar on March 20, 2025, from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., which can help guide you on practical ways to avoid mistakes in this complex regulatory area.
Congratulations, you’ve hired a new employee! Now, part of onboarding new employees includes filling out all new hire paperwork — and CalChamber’s forms and checklists can be your secret weapon.
HRCalifornia’s checklists and forms are designed to be used to help you with the new-hire process, as specific forms may be required by law or may help you document your responses to employee requests. Plus, our forms and checklists are kept up to date because they’re revised whenever federal and state employment laws change.
For a new hire, download HRCalifornia’s Hiring Checklist. This two-page checklist lays out the legally required forms, such as the Wage and Employment Notice to Employees (Labor Code section 2810.5) for nonexempt employees and pamphlets about state benefits, that each new hire must receive. Federal and state tax forms, such as the federal W-4 and the state DE-4, plus the federal Form I-9, must also be completed. Missing one of these forms could put an employer out of compliance, which is not a good thing.
Next, download the Employee Orientation Checklist and give it to the person who will conduct the new hire orientation. The new hire completes this form and acknowledges that they have received the correct forms and information during the orientation process.
A new hire may need to fill out the Personal Physician Designation form and/or Personal Chiropractor or Acupuncturist Designation form, among others, and acknowledge that they received other forms, such as the General Notice of COBRA Continuation Coverage Rights and your company’s Harassment, Discrimination and Retaliation Prevention Policy.
Also, this checklist helps you keep track of other important steps, such as making sure your employee receives your employee handbook and their Initial Safety Training — just to name a few. The checklist also helps you to keep track of any company property you may have given to the employee, such as a parking pass or uniform.
And it’s not just new hire paperwork — you can trust HRCalifornia for the right forms for practically any scenario. When you visit HRCalifornia’s HR Forms and Checklists page, you can use the “Find by Topic” search function to get directly to the forms and checklists you need for a particular purpose, such as Recruiting and Hiring > Getting New Employees Started.
In addition to the checklists and forms already discussed, you’ll find other helpful forms for getting your new employee started, such as:
Finally, HRCalifornia’s New Hire Guide has many of the forms you need through the hiring process (including many of those mentioned above), although specific situations may call for additional paperwork.
New hire paperwork should only be one part of your company’s onboarding process. As mentioned earlier, onboarding gives new hires a first impression of your company — and those first impressions can have a lasting impact. On average, employers have 44 days to influence how long a new hire plans to stay, according to a 2023 BambooHR study, which make a good onboarding process critical to your employee retention.
Most employees (56%) prefer one or two days to ease into their new role, with 97% saying onboarding should include training on the tools and software the company uses (81% believe this is critical). New hires also expect their access to technology — like their work computers, software and shared passwords — to work without issue. Not only does this make for a stress-free first day, but it also demonstrates your company’s operational efficiency and sets a positive tone.
Additionally, new hires tend to value workplace friendships, so onboarding should include creating authentic social connections, like an informal meet-and-greet over coffee, and relationship building, like having new hires shadow a colleague or assign them an experienced work buddy. Work buddies can provide guidance and answer questions on company culture and processes, which can help new employees navigate their roles more effectively.
Overall, a good onboarding experience should include:
Remember, a good onboarding plan can increase employee retention, which is a win for employers as recruiting, hiring and training new employees is not usually cheap or quick.
Congratulations, you have recruited, interviewed and onboarded a new hire. Now, it’s time to focus on the million other things on your to-do list. Good luck!