TL;DR: An engineering consulting firm in Dublin was losing 2.8 days per new hire to setup delays. 40% were missing critical access on Day 1—no laptop, no email, no project files. The problem wasn't any single department. It was that nobody owned coordination. We built an agent that triggers tasks across IT, HR, Facilities, and Management with calculated deadlines, tracks progress, and escalates overdue items. New hires now have everything ready in 4 hours. The firm saves €29K annually in unproductive time.
The Empty Desk
Niamh started her new job on a Monday. Senior structural engineer. €125K salary. The firm had been recruiting for three months.
She arrived at 9 AM. Nobody knew she was coming.
Well, that's not quite true. HR knew. They'd done the paperwork. But IT hadn't set up her laptop—they thought she was starting next week. Facilities hadn't prepared a desk—nobody told them. Her manager was in a client meeting until noon.
Niamh sat in the lobby for 45 minutes. Then someone found her a temporary spot at an empty desk. No computer. No email. No access to project files. No idea what she was supposed to be doing.
She spent her first day reading the employee handbook on her phone.
Day two: laptop arrived, but no software licenses.
Day three: software installed, but no access to the project management system.
Day four: finally productive.
"I felt like an afterthought my first week," she told Cormac, the operations director, during her 30-day check-in.
He'd heard this before. From almost every new hire.
The Coordination Problem
The firm had checklists. Lots of checklists.
IT had a checklist: laptop, email, software licenses, network access, VPN.
HR had a checklist: paperwork, benefits enrollment, policy acknowledgments, badge.
Facilities had a checklist: desk assignment, building access, parking.
Management had a checklist: project assignment, team introductions, first-week schedule.
Finance had a checklist: payroll setup, expense card, timesheet system access.
Every department did their job. Eventually. The problem was coordination.
IT didn't start provisioning until HR sent the equipment request form. HR didn't send the form until the manager confirmed start date. The manager assumed HR had already handled it. Nobody followed up.
Nothing was urgent to anyone except the new hire sitting at an empty desk.
For a senior engineer at €60+/hour, this was expensive confusion. We've written about how to calculate these hidden costs.
The Numbers
Cormac tracked onboarding outcomes for a quarter. The results were worse than he expected.
2.8 days average from start date to fully productive setup. Nearly three days of a new hire's time, wasted.
40% of new hires missing at least one critical access on Day 1. Laptop, email, building access, project system—something was always missing.
€29,000 annual cost. The firm hired 2-3 people per month. At average salaries of €80K+ (blended across roles), those unproductive days added up.
Zero visibility into where things stood. When Niamh sat in the lobby, nobody could tell Cormac which tasks were done and which weren't. There was no central view.
The problem wasn't bad people. Everyone did their jobs when asked. The problem was the asking—the coordination, the reminders, the follow-up that fell through cracks.
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