Good Afternoon AAOU SSC Departments,
In an effort to streamline the onboarding process and mitigate delays that are often seen at the in-person I-9 verification stage, the AAOU SSC will no longer perform the in-person I-9 verifications for new hires.
More often than not, new hires have issues scheduling and attending an in-person I-9 verification event with AAOU SSC staff (by or before the required federal deadline), which causes the University to be out of compliance with Federal, State and USM regulations. Since new hires starting with your department are expected to be in your department on their first day of employment, authorizing a department representative to complete the in-person I-9 verification should help minimize the delays in completing I-9 verifications timely.
AAOU SSC will still maintain oversight of the completion of the onboarding process to ensure continued compliance with all Federal, State, USM and UMBC regulations and guidelines; which includes corroborating the in-person I-9 verification step was completed timely and successfully at the department level.
What this means for you?
Your department should continue to submit New Hire RT Tickets to AAOU SSC with all required supporting documentation as the first step in initiating the onboarding processes.
AAOU SSC will continue to initiate all onboarding paperwork via DocuSign, which includes the new hire onboarding packet and the I-9 packet.
When the I-9 packet is initiated by AAOU SSC it is routed to the new hire (employee) for completion of page 1 of the form. AAOU SSC will list an Authorized Representative from the department on the DocuSign (generally this will be the hiring manager, supervisor or a designated representative from your department).
Our RT system is being updated to include two new fields on all New Hire RT Ticket Request Types:
Who, from your department, will be verifying this hire's I-9 documents in person and completing the associated DocuSign, should one be needed?
- Representatives Name
- Representatives Email
When completing the New Hire RT Ticket, you will indicate who the departments Authorized Representative should be for that hire, and that is the name and email address we will use under the "Authorized Representative" section when initiating the DocuSign I-9 form for that particular new hire.
Once AAOU SSC initiates and routes the form to the new hire, the new hire will complete page 1 of the form, and upon completion and submission the form will automatically route to the listed Authorized Representative.
The Authorized Representative will need to schedule the in-person I-9 verification appointment with the hire for a date by or before their start date.
On the date of the schedule in-person I-9 verification, the Authorized Representative will complete a physical review of the hires acceptable documentation in person, and will update page 2 of the I-9 DocuSign accordingly. They will then scan a copy of the physical documents and attach them to the I-9 DocuSign.
Upon submission of the completed I-9 DocuSign the Authorized Representative will need to download the COMPLETED DocuSign in PDF format, and attach a copy to the New Hire RT ticket confirming the in-person I-9 verification was completed timely and successfully.
A detailed How-to-Article on Completing In-Person I-9 Verifications for New Hires is attached for your reference, and is also saved to our website here.
If you have questions related to this process update, please submit a General Inquiry RT Ticket to AAOU SSC, and one of our team member will assist you.
Thank you,
Vania Cruz