Adding & inviting staff
Add a staff member to your business, choose how they're onboarded, and invite them to the Shiftly Me app.
Add a new staff member from the People page, fill in their details, and choose how they join — straight away as a draft, by sending them an onboarding request to complete their own details, or by onboarding them into Xero.
Who this is for
Owners and managers using the Shiftly web platform.
Before you start
- You're an owner or a manager with access to this business.
- Open People from the main navigation.
Add a staff member
Open the add menu
On the People page, select Add new employee in the top right. The menu gives you three ways to add someone:
- Add employee manually — you fill in their details now.
- Send onboarding request — the employee fills in their own details from a link you email them.
- Import from file — add many people at once from a spreadsheet (see Importing staff from a file).
When your business is connected to Xero, two more options appear — Add and onboard into Xero and Import from Xero. See Connecting Xero.
Enter their details
Choosing Add employee manually opens the Add a new employee form. Fill in:
- First name, Last name and Email — required. The email is how the person signs in and receives their invite.
- Start date — defaults to today.
- Eligible to receive leave loading — available for permanent (full-time and part-time) employees.
- Super exempt — turn on when super shouldn't apply (for example, an employee under 18 working fewer than 30 hours a week).
- Notes — internal only; the employee never sees these.
Set their employment type
Choose whether the person is an employee or a contractor, then set their Employment basis (full time, part time or casual for employees; labour hire or non-employee for contractors) and Income type (salary and wages, working holiday maker or closely held payees).
You can optionally Classify employee here to estimate their pay rate, or Manually set rate — see Classifying staff. If you skip it, their pay rate stays at $0 until you set it.
When your business runs more than one award, an Award code dropdown appears so you can choose which award applies to this person. Businesses with a single award don't see it.
Choose how they're added
The button at the bottom of the form changes with the option you picked:
- Add employee manually → Save adds the person as a draft. They aren't sent an onboarding request — though they'll still get a Shiftly Me invite if that option is left ticked (see below). You can finish their details and onboard them later.
- Send onboarding request → Next: Send to Employee emails the person a link to complete their own details (personal info, tax, bank and super). See Onboarding new staff.
- Add and onboard into Xero (when Xero is connected) → sends the onboarding request and syncs the employee to Xero.
Invite them to Shiftly Me
Leave Invite this employee to Shiftly Me ticked (it's on by default) to email the person an invite to the Shiftly Me app, where they see their roster, clock in and out, set availability and request leave.
If the email already belongs to someone on your team, Shiftly won't add them to this business twice — you'll see a message telling you they're already onboarded.