Key points
- Deployment is where recruitment records often get left behind.
- Carry across identity and travel documents, clearances, cost records and custody history.
- Hand over only after the records are reviewed, and record who confirmed it and when.
- Start the worker record with the employment facts: employer client, start date and role.
For most of a placement, the file belongs to the recruitment team. It holds the candidate's documents, the demand it fills, the clearances and the costs. On the day the worker starts, a different team takes over: the people who keep the worker record, track expiries and answer the employer client.
That moment is where records are most often left behind. The candidate file stays in a recruitment folder, and the worker record starts with a name, a passport number and an empty documents section. Weeks later, someone is asked a question that the recruitment file could answer, and nobody knows where to look.
What a good handover contains
A short list, applied every time, solves most of this. The handover should carry:
- Identity and travel documents: passport details and the copy on file, with validity dates.
- Employment contract: the signed version and its start date.
- Clearances and approvals recorded during recruitment: each with its date and the document that shows it.
- Medical results: with dates and who reviewed them.
- Permit and pass records: the current document and its expiry date.
- Recruitment cost record: every cost entry, who paid it and the evidence.
- Passport custody history: who held the passport, since when and its return.
- Notes and exceptions: anything unusual that happened, with dates.
The test for each item is simple. If a colleague opens the worker record next month, can they find this without asking the recruitment team?
Check before you hand over
Do not hand over a record with open questions. Before the date of deployment, run through three checks:
- Reviewed: has a person looked at each document and confirmed it matches the record?
- Dated: does every clearance and approval have a date and a document?
- Owned: does every open item have an owner and a next date?
If any answer is no, either fix it first or write down the gap as an open item on the worker record. Silence at handover becomes a surprise later.
Start the worker record with employment facts
The worker record also needs facts that did not exist during recruitment:
- employer client and site
- role and start date
- who at the employer client is the contact
- who in your team looks after the worker from now on
Add them on the day. These are the facts that clients ask about first.
Record the handover itself
Record who confirmed the handover and when. A line is enough: "Handed over to records team, 12 October, confirmed by the records lead." If something is missing later, you will know whether it was missing at handover or lost afterwards.
Keep the candidate file reachable
Do not delete or archive the candidate file the day the worker deploys. Keep it linked to the worker record so that anyone who needs the history of the placement can follow it back.
Handling late arrivals of paperwork
Some documents arrive after deployment: a final receipt, a stamped copy, a result that was pending. Do not treat these as outside the handover. List them as open items on the worker record at the date of deployment, with an owner and the date you expect them.
When a late document arrives, attach it to the worker record, have it reviewed like any other, and close the open item. That way the record shows both that it was late and when it was resolved, and nobody has to ask the recruitment team where it went.
Handover checklist
- Every document on the candidate file is attached to the worker record.
- Each document has been reviewed by a person.
- Every clearance has a date and evidence.
- Cost entries and passport custody history are complete.
- Employer client, site, role and start date are filled in.
- Open items have an owner and a date.
- The handover is recorded with who confirmed it.
Where Worker Vault fits
In Worker Vault, deployment creates the worker and employment record and carries forward documents, compliance records, recruitment costs and passport custody from the placement. The employment record starts with the employer client. Documents that were reviewed stay reviewed, and version history is preserved.
A deployment handover workbook can be exported to Excel when someone needs the pack as a file. To see how deployment looks with your own placements, Book a Demo. You can also read about worker records and the stages of a placement.
See your workers, documents and deadlines in one place
Book a demo and we will walk through how your agency would run recruitment and worker records in Worker Vault.
