How a rural medical practice reduced registrar onboarding from 5–6 hours to 1–2 and built an HR lifecycle that no longer relied on one person.
The Challenge
The practice depended heavily on its Practice Manager, Alicia Wynder. She managed onboarding, credentialling, record renewals, access requests and more-including multiple streams of documents and data.
The complexity wasn’t the number of new starters-it was the number of different systems, inputs, forms and requirements that all flowed through one person.
“Before Empire, as you can probably tell, it was very clunky, manual and very reliant on me.”
Alicia Wynder — Practice Manager
The complexity was not simply the number of new starters. Doctors, nurses and administrative staff all followed different pathways, while colleges, Medicare, hospitals and internal systems each had their own requirements.
01 Paper forms, scanned documents and Word files spread across locations.
02 Repeated data entry and endless email back-and-forth.
03 Critical steps held in Alicia’s memory rather than the system.
04 Different onboarding pathways for every type of employee.
WHAT WE UNCOVERED
GMC initially asked for a learning management system. Discovery showed that learning content was only the visible tip of a much larger structural problem: the whole employee lifecycle relied on one person to keep it moving.
THE INITIAL REQUEST
THE REAL OPERATIONAL NEED
The Approach
The work had to live inside GMC’s existing Microsoft 365 environment. No new platforms. No new licences. No new system for the team to learn.
Learning management.
Role-based learning, completion tracking and training content managed centrally in Microsoft Lists.
Digital data capture.
Digital forms capture information once and carry it through the onboarding process.
Automated forms.
Information entered once pre-populates 20 downstream forms, leaving them largely ready for signature.
Automated workflow.
Signed contracts automatically trigger folders, notifications, documents and record updates.
Single source of truth.
Documentation, learning resources and team information consolidated in one central location.
CHALLENGES ALONG THE WAY
Making the investment case
Sarah needed to demonstrate to the partnership that operational improvement was a valuable use of limited funds.
“We had to be really mindful about our spend and convince our business partners that this was going to be valuable.”
Sarah Gleeson · Practice Owner
Pacing a larger transformation
Pulling on the original thread surfaced a full employee-lifecycle rebuild, so the team tested and refined the work in stages.
“It is important to go slow, pace ourselves and test these systems as we go.”
Alicia Wynder · Practice Manager
“When someone signs a contract, it triggers all the other things to happen in our systems that I would do manually. I’m no longer having to copy and paste data or duplicate forms. Previously I had a mental checklist of all the things I needed to do for onboarding. Empire has automated this.
Onboarding is now 70–80% faster. What used to take hours is streamlined, automated, and just works. Email back-and-forth has halved, and it all just feels easier.”
What was once a manual, person-dependent process can now move from signed contract to operational readiness in as little as 24 hours.
01 Employment contract signed
02 Team records updated
03 Folders and files created
04 Forms pre-populated for signature
05 Stakeholders notified automatically
measurable Outcomes
Alicia confidently took maternity leave whilst recruitment, onboarding and compliance continued to operate without her.
Registrar onboarding (per doctor)
5–6 hours
1–2 hours
~70% faster
Email back-and-forth per applicant
High
50% less
−50%
Missed or duplicate forms
Common
Eliminated
Automated out of existence
A stronger candidate experience
A polished rural recruitment process that competes with metropolitan practices.
More valuable human effort
Alicia can focus on higher-value operational work without losing visibility.
A foundation for more
The same approach is expanding into nursing and administrative recruitment.
Could one of your workflows be redesigned the same way?
You don’t need to know the solution. Bring us the work that feels too manual, fragile or dependent on one person, and we’ll help you work out what should change.
CHANGE IN ACTION
Sarah Gleeson · Practice Owner
“If we want to attract high-quality staff, we need a really slick process that reflects our business.”
THE PRACTICE
Alicia Wynder · Practice Manager
“I can focus on other areas knowing the process will continue being of high quality.”
THE PRACTICE MANAGER
Sarah Gleeson · Practice Owner
“It has paid us back dividends and set us up to keep making foundational changes.”
THE INVESTMENT
The BUsiness Today
Recruitment, onboarding and compliance now operate more consistently, with less manual effort and less reliance on one person.
Alicia has returned from maternity leave, with the redesigned HR lifecycle operating as intended throughout her absence. GMC is now extending the same approach across more of its…
Nursing recruitment
Administrative recruitment
Ongoing operational improvement
