A new worker's first day is a compliance moment, not just an HR one. Here's the checklist — screening, registration, Code of Conduct sign-offs, induction and records — to have in place before they start, and how to prove it later.
The Accorda Team · 3 August 2026
A new team member starts on Monday. You've made the offer, sorted the roster, ordered a uniform, and someone's showing them where the kettle lives. It feels like an HR job — and mostly it is.
But a new worker's first day is also a compliance moment. In care and regulated work, the question an auditor eventually asks isn't just "is this person safe and qualified?" It's "can you prove they were safe and qualified before they started supporting people?" Those are two different questions, and the gap between them is where a lot of otherwise good providers come unstuck.
The reassuring part: onboarding compliance isn't complicated. It's a short, repeatable list. The trouble is that the list lives in different people's heads, the evidence ends up scattered across inboxes and drawers, and no one owns the moment when a check quietly expires. This is a guide to the list — and to keeping it somewhere you can actually find it.
Every care regulator, in its own words, expects the same basic thing: that the people delivering support are screened, competent, and inducted into how your organisation works before they're let loose. Under the NDIS Practice Standards this sits in human resource management. In aged care it runs through worker screening and the Aged Care Code of Conduct. In early childhood it's Working with Children Checks and qualification requirements. For health practitioners it's registration with Ahpra. The settings differ; the principle doesn't.
And here's the part that catches people out. Doing the checks isn't enough on its own — you have to be able to show you did them, at the point they mattered. A clearance that was verified but never recorded, an induction that happened but was never signed off, a first-aid certificate that lapsed three months ago and nobody noticed: on paper, these look identical to never having done the work at all.
The regulators don't just ask whether your workers are safe and qualified. They ask whether you can prove it — on the day, not after the fact.
Treat this as a starting frame, not the last word. Exact requirements vary by sector, by state or territory, and by the type of role — so always confirm the current rules with your regulator for your setting. But the shape is consistent.
Right to work and identity. Confirm the person can legally work in Australia and is who they say they are. Simple, easily forgotten, and the foundation everything else sits on.
The right screening check for your sector. This is the big one, and it's setting-specific:
NDIS providers — workers in risk-assessed roles need an NDIS Worker Screening Check clearance. Don't assume a general police check covers it.
Aged care — the Australian Government requires all aged care workers (and responsible persons such as directors) to be screened, either through a current police certificate or an NDIS Worker Screening Check. Providers have to assess certificates against the disqualifying offences that apply to their service type.
Childcare and services working with children — a valid Working with Children Check, issued by your state or territory, is required to work with children.
The common thread: the clearance generally needs to be sorted before someone starts in a role that involves supporting people, not chased up afterwards.
Qualifications and professional registration. Verify the person actually holds what the role requires. For allied health, dental and other regulated professions, that means checking the practitioner is currently registered on the Ahpra public register — not just sighting a certificate. In early childhood, it means confirming the qualification meets ACECQA's requirements. Sight the original, and keep a dated record of what you checked.
References and history. Reasonable reference checks appropriate to the role, kept on file.
Code of Conduct and key policy sign-offs. New workers should read and formally acknowledge the code that applies to them — the NDIS Code of Conduct, the Aged Care Code of Conduct, or your own equivalent — along with the handful of policies they most need from day one: incident reporting, complaints, privacy, and safeguarding or child safety where relevant. A signed, dated acknowledgement is the evidence that this happened.
Induction and orientation. A genuine induction into your organisation's specific way of working — not a folder handed over and forgotten. NDIS providers have the Commission's free Worker Orientation Module, "Quality, Safety and You," as a standard part of worker induction. Whatever your sector, record who was inducted, when, and in what.
Role-specific training and currency. First aid and CPR, manual handling, medication competency, food safety — whatever the role demands. Note not just that it was done, but when it needs refreshing.
The final step is the one most providers skip, and it's the one that quietly undoes all the others: capturing every clearance, registration and certificate — with its expiry date — somewhere central, so that six or twelve months from now you're warned before something lapses rather than discovering it during an audit.
It's rarely the doing. Most providers screen their people and induct them properly. What trips them up is the proving.
The evidence ends up everywhere: a screening result forwarded to a manager's inbox, a signed policy sheet in a filing cabinet at one site, a first-aid certificate saved to somebody's desktop, an induction that everyone remembers happening but nobody can produce a record of. Then a worker's clearance expires and no one is watching the date. Individually, none of these feels like a problem. Together, they're the difference between "audit-ready" and a stressful fortnight reconstructing a paper trail.
The fix isn't more effort. It's one place where the onboarding record lives, and something keeping an eye on the dates for you.
This is the exact workflow Accorda is built for. To be clear about what it does and doesn't do: Accorda doesn't run the screening check, issue the Working with Children Check, or register anyone with Ahpra — those stay with the official bodies. What Accorda does is hold the evidence and make sure nothing slips.
Policy management with staff sign-offs gives you a dated, tamper-evident record that each new worker read and acknowledged the Code of Conduct and your key policies — so "they were inducted" becomes something you can show, not just something you remember.
The credentials and licence register keeps every worker's screening clearance, professional registration and training certificate in one place, each with its expiry date. Smart bundled notifications warn you ahead of time when something's due, in a single tidy prompt rather than a flood of alerts.
One-click audit evidence packs mean that when someone asks you to demonstrate a worker was screened, inducted and signed off before they started, you pull it together in minutes instead of days.
Onboarding done well is quiet. The work happens once, the evidence files itself, and the next time you think about it is when a friendly reminder tells you a check is coming up for renewal.
You don't need to overhaul everything at once. Take your next new starter and run them through the list properly: screening confirmed before they start, registration verified, Code of Conduct signed and dated, induction recorded, every certificate and its expiry captured centrally. Do that once, cleanly, and you've built the template for every hire after it — and closed one of the most common gaps an auditor will ever find.
If you'd like to see how Accorda keeps onboarding evidence organised and warns you before credentials expire, take a look at Accorda.
Aged Care Code of Conduct — Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission
Worker training modules — NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission
Registers of practitioners — Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra)
Qualifications — Australian Children's Education & Care Quality Authority (ACECQA)
This article is general information only, current as at July 2026, and is not legal or compliance advice. Regulatory requirements can change.
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