Add a New Employee

The article provides a comprehensive guide on adding new employees to a BambooHR account. It outlines the purpose of the feature and offers step-by-step instructions, including options for hiring a candidate or manually adding an employee. Users can access the "Add New Employee" form from either the Home or People tab. The article details the information required, such as personal details and payroll options, and emphasizes the importance of valid email addresses for employee access. It also addresses common issues, such as email conflicts with non-employee users. Lastly, it highlights additional features that can be connected to new employee profiles, enhancing the onboarding process and ensuring efficient management of employee data.

  • Jul 6, 2026
  • Knowledge

Title
Add a New Employee
Article Text
Banner at the top of the article showing four package labels: Core (green, active), Pro (red, grayed), Elite (blue, grayed), and Add-on (gray, grayed). This indicates that the “Add a New Employee” feature is available for the Core, Pro, and Elite packages.

How do I add a new employee?

Purpose: To teach you how to add a new employee to your BambooHR account. Additionally, we have added some helpful tips to help you connect your employees to other amazing features.

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Table of Contents

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Hire a Candidate

Pop-up window with green checkmark and confetti. Large text reads “Charlotte got the job!” followed by “Add Charlotte as a new employee now.” Below, an option is checked to Close this job opening and remove the public posting. At the bottom, two buttons: Cancel (left) and Add New Employee (green, right, highlighted).

If you are using BambooHR's Hiring feature, you will want to create the employee from the candidate profile. Navigate to the candidate's profile that you would like to add to BambooHR. Change the candidate's status to Hire,then click the Add New Employeebutton.

Manually Add a New Employee

Sometimes you need to add an employee or contractor who hasn't gone through the ATS. If you want their information housed in the ATS for reporting purposes, add the new employee or contractor as a candidate, then hire them from there. If you do not want their information housed in the ATS, follow the instructions below.

Add from your Home tab

Screenshot of the BambooHR Home tab dashboard. In the top-right corner, a dropdown menu under New… is expanded, with two options: New Employee (highlighted) and New Report. The page background shows the employee’s name and dashboard widgets, but focus is on the dropdown location.

Add from the People tab

Screenshot of the Org Chart view in the People tab. On the left menu, the People option is highlighted. At the top of the org chart, a green button labeled + New Employee is highlighted. Several employee profile cards are displayed below in the org chart.

To begin, navigate to the People tab and click + New Employee.

Add New Employee Form

Whether you added your newest team member through the ATS for from the people tab, filling out the New Employee form is how you will complete the process.

Screenshot of the New Employee page. At the top-right corner is an orange link labeled Customize Add Employee Form. The page displays sections: Send a New Hire Packet (checkbox option with description to allow employee self-onboarding). Payroll (checkbox: “Pay this employee through Payroll”). Personal Information section with fields for Employee #, Status (dropdown), First Name, Middle Name, Last Name, and Preferred Name. At the bottom-left, a green Save button and gray Cancel button appear. The left sidebar shows the navigation menu with the People tab selected.

Complete the employee's basic information and click Save to add them to BambooHR.

Additional features are available when you add a new employee, which includes:

  • New Hire Packet: If you use employee self-onboarding, do not forget to check the box to send a New Hire Packet.
  • Payroll: Select the payroll provider you wish to pay the new employee through in this dropdown. If you do not plan to pay the employee through BambooHR Payroll or one of our payroll integrations, simple click None or External. If you select BambooHR Payroll, this action will update the required fields when you add the new employee to avoid missing any important payroll information.
  • Employee #: To turn on automatic employee numbering, please contact a support hero.
  • Hire Date: An employee's hire date will determine specific functionalities within BambooHR (i.e., time off, automatic benefit eligibility, onboarding assignments, email alerts, etc.). Be sure to add this information when adding an employee to BambooHR.
  • Self-service access*: If you add a work or home email address, you can enable employee access for an employee when adding them to the system, and it would help streamline the onboarding process. Keep in mind that when you allow employee access from the Add Employee page, the employee will receive an email on their hire date to log in to BambooHR and access their information.
    • If you are wanting to add an employee to the Full Admin access level, please review this guide in detail to make sure that you configure their BambooHR access accurately.

The Full Admin user(s) can customize the fields that appear on the Add Employee page by clicking Customize Add Employee Form in the top right corner. If you want to require a field, please reach out to a support hero.

Once fields are available in the Add Employee form and depending on a field's settings, you will have the option to add a field to your New Hire Packet for your new employees to fill out before their first day.

The Social Security Number field requires validation. The employee or admin user must enter a valid SSN, or the field can be blank. The employee or admin user entering an invalid SSN will see an error that asks them to enter a valid SSN. If the SSN field is required,* you cannot save the changes on the employee's record until the employee or admin user enters a valid SSN.

If you are using the Payroll integration, the SSN or EIN field must be complete for it to sync to Payroll. The EIN field is a standard field you can add to your account. See here for more information.

*If your account requires the SSN field and you would like to make it optional, please reach out to a support hero to assist you.

Contact section of Add Employee form. Fields for Work Phone, Mobile Phone, Home Phone, and Email. The Email field shows charlotte@bamboohr.com with a red warning icon and error message “There is a problem with this email address.” A pop-up message explains the email bounced and suggests updating it or confirming validity. Two options are shown: Yes it is (to confirm) and a link labeled What’s wrong?.

*When you add a new employee and enable their access, check if there is already a created email account for the employee. If you allow an employee access to BambooHR and there is no created email account, the welcome email will bounce back to BambooHR and is undeliverable. The Account Owner will receive an email notification (shown below) to fix the suppression and have the employee receive future emails. Upon receiving the email, the Account Owner can correct the email address or clickYes, it isto remove the suppression.

If you do not enable an employee with employee access when you first add them to BambooHR and their email address is incorrect, you will receive the suppression email the first time ANY email sends to the employee through BambooHR.

For example, if you do not enable an employee immediately, you may send out a company announcement that includes the employee. Company announcements do not require an employee to have access to receive them. The employee must be active to receive an announcement. If the employee's email address is invalid, this will create a suppression on the email address in BambooHR and notify the Account Owner.

Notification box with green check icon stating: “We tried sending an email to this address, but there was a problem.” Below, explanation that the email was invalid and must be corrected. A sample employee (Olivia Johnson) is listed. At the bottom is a green button labeled Update Email Address.
What do I do if an error shows that the email is already in use, but no other employee profile has the email?

This happens most often if you have a non-employee user with that same email address. It’s common to use this type of user for external contacts who need to have access to BambooHR (e.g. a contractor). In some cases, you may want to add that non-employee user as an employee. When you try to add a new employee, the system will recognize the email is linked to the non-employee user. You can fix this by deleting the non-employee user profile. Check out the “How do I delete a non-employee user?” section in this guide for those steps.

The user will lose access once the non-employee profile is deleted, but the email in that profile will no longer be linked; it will be available for the new profile. Access can be enabled, once again, on the add employee form or in the profile after it is created.

Now you are ready to connect employees to our amazing features!
  • Assign a time off policy to enable an employee to accrue time off automatically.
  • Enroll the employee in benefit plans.
  • Will an employee be tracking their shifts in BambooHR? If so, be sure to enable Time & Attendance (add-on feature).
  • Training: If you have created training that applies to an employee, the training will automatically add to the employee's Training tab so you can record completions.
  • Performance (add-on feature): If you use BambooHR's Performance Management feature, a new employee will automatically start participating in Performance Management.

"Our process for adding multiple employees is time-consuming and error-prone, requiring manual data entry for each individual record. This not only slows down onboarding but also increases the risk of inconsistencies and mistakes in employee information. I'm concerned that this inefficiency is taking up valuable HR time and could lead to data inaccuracies that impact reporting and compliance. We need a faster, more reliable way to add employees in bulk without sacrificing accuracy."

Our Solution: Our BambooHR Services team can take the heavy lifting off your plate by importing your employee data for you. We will ensure your information is uploaded accurately and efficiently, eliminating manual entry, reducing errors, and freeing up your team’s time so you can focus on more strategic HR initiatives.

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