A new hire productive in a day, not a week

The situation

Almost every SMB has the same pattern: a new colleague starts, and week one is a tour of vendors and colleagues to get everything working. Microsoft 365 account, MFA, distribution lists, shared mailboxes, phone, laptop install, calendar rights, VPN, printer, the one VPN piece that's always forgotten.

Nobody actively complains, but every new hire costs two to four days of somebody else and only delivers real productivity in week two.

What we did

We built one onboarding runbook with scripts that do most of it in a morning:

- Microsoft 365 account, mailbox, MFA, default license and correct groups, one command. - Laptop image prepared up front (Windows image, required software, policy); arrival day they unbox and are signed in within fifteen minutes. - Distribution lists and shared mailboxes by role (sales/finance/general), automated. - Phone, printer, VPN: pre-provisioned based on location.

HR fills out a form and everything for day one is in place.

What it delivered

Across the six onboardings since:

- Time from "accepted" to "productive in real systems": from 4-6 days on average to 0.5 day. - No more "behind-the-curve tickets" in week two for missing access. - HR runs the entire onboarding without calling us, which is the whole point. - The runbook lives in your wiki, with the "why" attached. If we leave tomorrow, it keeps going.

What this wasn't

Not a six-figure HR platform. Not a second tool duplicating the existing admin. Not "we'll handle every onboarding from now on", we set it up so you can, faster than before.