E-signatures for HR teams

What does an HR team send for signature?

The employee lifecycle produces paper at every stage. Hiring brings the offer letter and contract. Onboarding adds the handbook acknowledgement, confidentiality agreement and equipment loan form. Later come contract variations for pay rises and role changes, and at the end, a settlement or separation agreement.

Most of these are signed by one employee and one manager or director, which keeps each envelope simple. The difficulty is volume across the year and keeping a clean record for each person's file.

• Offer letter and employment contract
• Employee handbook and policy acknowledgements
• NDA and intellectual property assignment
• Contract variation for pay, hours or role
• Settlement or separation agreement

Where HR signing gets complicated

Settlement agreements in the UK only stop an employee bringing certain claims if the employee has had independent legal advice, under section 203 of the Employment Rights Act 1996. That means a third signer: the adviser who signs the certificate of advice. The order matters, because the employer usually signs last.

Policy acknowledgements are the other headache. When the handbook changes, every employee needs to confirm they have read it. With 30 staff that is 30 separate records, each needing a name, a date and a signature that can be produced at a tribunal or hearing years later.

In the US, Form I-9 has its own federal rules for electronic signature systems. Check those before using any general e-signature tool for it.

How HR teams use Sign PDF step by step

A typical new-starter contract takes a few minutes from upload to send.

• Upload the contract from Word. Sign PDF converts it to PDF and places boxes beside Employee and Company signature lines.
• Add a date under each signature, or type 'add job title under the company signature' to have it filled.
• Set signing order so the employee signs first and the director countersigns.
• For settlement agreements, add the employee's adviser as a third signer between employee and employer.
• Save the handbook acknowledgement as a template and send it to each employee in turn when the policy changes.

What it costs for an HR team

A company hiring two people a month and doing little else could use Light at $5 a month. Once you add handbook sign-offs and contract variations, Full at $10 a month for unlimited documents is the safer choice, and it brings templates and reminders.

Each employee's acknowledgement is a separate document, so a policy update across 30 staff is 30 sends. On Full that costs nothing extra.

What HR teams will find missing

We have no integration with HR information systems or payroll, no single sign-on, no team seats or roles, no API and no bulk send. For a department of several HR staff that needs approvals routed through a system of record, those gaps are real, and an enterprise e-signature product or the signing built into your HRIS is the better fit.

We are not HIPAA, SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certified. If your security team requires those for any vendor holding employee data, Sign PDF will not pass that review today.