A contractor is usually brought in because something needs doing soon. Every day spent waiting for a laptop, an account or a signature is a day of that time lost, and on a three-month contract, losing the first week is losing a meaningful share of the engagement.
Most of the delay is avoidable. It comes from doing in week one what could have been done before it.
Before the start date: the paperwork
These are the items we aim to have finished before a contractor's first morning. Which of them apply, and how they are carried out, depends on the country, the client's policy and the role.
The contracts
- The client agreement or statement of work covering the role, rate, term, notice and conversion terms if relevant
- The contractor's own contract with their employer, which for our placements is NorthStackHub, covering pay rate, pay calendar, term, notice and working pattern
- Confidentiality and intellectual property terms, often the client's own, which need to be reviewed and signed before access is given
The checks
- Right to work in the country where the work will be done
- Identity verification
- Background checks to the client's policy, which can include employment history, education and criminal record checks where lawful
What is permitted in background screening, and what consent is required, varies significantly between jurisdictions. Agree the scope of checks with whoever is running them and take advice where you are unsure. Starting checks late is the single most common reason a start date slips.
Payroll and timesheets
The contractor should know before day one how to submit time, who approves it, and when they will be paid. The approver on the client side should know too. An unapproved timesheet at the end of the first cycle is a poor start for everyone.
Before the start date: access
Ask the hiring manager to list everything the contractor will need to do real work, then make sure each item is requested well in advance. A typical list for a technology role:
- Laptop or virtual desktop, or confirmation that a personal device is permitted and under what controls
- Email, chat and calendar accounts
- Single sign-on and multi-factor authentication set up
- Source control, with access to the right repositories
- Ticketing system and the team's board
- Documentation, wiki and design files
- Development, test and, where appropriate, staging environments
- VPN or network access
- Building access for onsite roles
Many organisations route access requests through separate teams with their own queues. Find out the lead time for each and work backwards from the start date. Where some access genuinely cannot be granted until the contractor arrives, prepare a first task that does not need it.
Day one: context, not paperwork
If the preparation has been done, the first day can be spent on the work. A good day one includes:
- A short welcome from the hiring manager, covering why the role exists and what success looks like at the end of the term
- An introduction to the team, including who to ask about what
- A walkthrough of the system, at the level of the architecture diagram, not every file
- Local setup, with a named person on hand to help when it breaks
- A first small task, picked in advance, that can be finished within a day or two
Choosing the first task
The first task is there to exercise the whole path from ticket to production, not to test the contractor. A good one:
- Is small and well understood
- Touches the real codebase and goes through the normal review process
- Can be merged and, where the team's process allows, released within the week
A contractor who has shipped something small by Friday has proven the environment works, learnt the team's review habits and built a little trust. That is worth far more than a week spent reading documentation.
The rest of week one
A light structure helps:
| Day | Focus |
|---|---|
| Monday | Welcome, team introductions, setup, first task assigned |
| Tuesday | First task in progress; pairing session with a team member |
| Wednesday | First task in review; walkthrough of the area they will own |
| Thursday | First task merged; second task picked from the real backlog |
| Friday | Short check-in with the manager: what is unclear, what is missing |
The Friday check-in matters. Contractors are often reluctant to say they are blocked, especially early in an assignment. Asking directly surfaces missing access and unclear expectations while they are still cheap to fix.
Our first-week check-in
We check in with both the client and the contractor during the first week of every placement, and monthly after that. The questions are simple: does the contractor have what they need, is the work what was described, and is anything already causing friction? Most problems we hear about in week one are small and easily fixed. The same problems heard about in month two are usually not.
A pre-start checklist
- Client agreement and contractor contract signed
- Confidentiality and IP terms signed
- Right-to-work and agreed background checks complete
- Timesheet process and approver confirmed
- Equipment and every access request submitted with lead times checked
- First task chosen and a named buddy assigned
- Day-one calendar sent to the contractor
We complete the contracts, checks and payroll set-up before the start date for every contractor we place. If you are bringing on contract talent and want that handled, request talent here.