Pretoria
Pretoria onboarding
Tshwane PrintWorks needed to hire fast, onboard well and keep operations flowing during a big Pretoria expansion.
Meet Tshwane PrintWorks
Tshwane PrintWorks is a five-person print and signage studio in Pretoria West. Owner-manager Sheila Dlamini and her team print banners, business cards and vehicle wraps for SMMEs between Sunnyside and Rosslyn. At the start of 2024, Sheila wanted to add three new hands to service a contract with a local primary school. She’d never run payroll for more than five staff, and most of her HR process was still on email and WhatsApp.
Starting Point: Overwhelmed Ops
Sheila’s tools were basic: a spreadsheet for leave, some old payslips from her accountant and a wall calendar showing load-shedding. Her UIF and PAYE were up to date, but she’d never filed an EMP201 alone or onboarded this many new people in one quarter. The pressing need was clear: three hires, one month, no margin for error. April’s stats made it plain: 12 back-and-forth emails per new staffer and a two-week lag for ID and SARS details. The quote for outside HR support was R6,800 per month, which just wasn't going to happen.
How We Organised the Onboarding
We got started with Sheila on 8 April, aiming to fill all three roles before month-end. We used our Hire Charm kit plus the Pretoria supplier hub for ID photos and SARS queries. One slip early on: I sent the contract template without the latest COIDA clause. Sorted that quickly.
- 8 April: Shared the Hire Charm onboarding checklist plus a pack of Pretoria supplier contacts.
- Day 3: Sheila used our staff info sheet to gather ID, address and SARS numbers. Helped her flag a missing UIF reference.
- Day 8: Set up a weekly ops check-in using our ops cadence template. Sheila looped in her bookkeeper for SARS eFiling.
- Day 10: Arranged staff photos and fingerprinting at our local supplier hub. Fast-tracked police and SARS documents.
- Day 14: Walked Sheila through customising her contract and offer letter using the kit templates.
- Day 17: Created a leave and pay calendar in Google Sheets, matching public holidays and paydays per contract.
- Day 22: Ran a test round of dummy payslips. Identified a small payslip maths error before it reached staff.
- 30 April: All three hires onboarded, contracts signed, EMP201 and UIF declarations ready for hand-over to her bookkeeper.
Outcomes You Can Count
Three weeks later, Tshwane PrintWorks had all three staff signed and working in Pretoria West, with no late payslips or SARS headaches. Sheila cut her onboarding time per new hire from 12 days to just four. Only one WhatsApp reminder needed for the last reference. Payroll cost stayed under R2,000 in total (excluding her accountant’s fee). Seven weeks in, she’d just sent her first automated payslip for the new team. Compared with her cousin’s shop in Sasolburg, Sheila managed half the admin load and zero lost documents. She also now gets her weekly ops rituals by email, staying on top of month-end even with Highveld storms knocking her wi-fi.
Three Months On: Keeping the Magic Going
By July, Sheila’s team was still at eight. She’d moved her ops check-in from the back room to a proper round-table chat. Leave requests now land in one inbox, and her EMP201 draft is ready by the 25th, every month. She keeps using our starter kits for each new admin task, and checks in via the Pretoria supplier hub for any new staff queries. If you’d like some backup for your own hiring or onboarding, just drop us your question at magic@bizmagic.co.za.
