Time-to-start

How it works

Add resignation notice, NBI, shipping, visas if any, and provisioning. Bragging about a 48-hour start usually means you skipped paper or hired someone already idle. For a U.S. company hiring one Filipino teammate, write this into the brief, the employment contract, and the peso payroll file before the start date. Slack habits do not override the Labor Code, BIR, or NPC. If the local employer of record holds the paper, they run the statutory step; you still owe a clean operating definition so the seat does not fail in week three. Put a number on the example when you budget loaded cost, because a nameless allowance always returns as a December surprise or a missed SLA.

Example: accepted 1 April, 30-day notice, start 5 May, laptop already there: honest time-to-start is 34 days.

How it differs

Start date lock is the chosen date. Time-to-slate is earlier in the funnel.

Common errors

Counting ‘they logged into Slack’ as started while payroll is still a private Wise tip.

In practice

Treat Time-to-start as a week-one operating object. Put this on the scorecard or the start-date checklist. If it only appears in a pitch deck, it will not survive week one. Write an owner - founder, local employer, or worker - and a date you will look at it again: first cutoff, first holiday, or first miss. If nobody can show a contract clause, a payslip line, a calendar block, or a checklist box, you do not have time-to-start yet. You have a conversation. Convert the conversation before the person starts, while changing the deal still costs a paragraph rather than a resignation. Re-read the worked example above against the actual hire in front of you. If the numbers in that example cannot be swapped for this seat’s pesos, hours, and start date, the brief is still unfinished.