Puma automates 100% of the employee onboarding process with Pipefy AI

Puma faced significant operational bottlenecks in its Human Resources department due to manual processes that could not keep up with the company’s growth pace. With continuous hiring cycles and new positions opening throughout the year, the monthly volume of new hires put pressure on the team’s capacity. Onboarding required a sequence of communications over 20 business days, in addition to manual verification of documents such as ID, tax numbers, and proof of address. This model consumed hours of work, generated data inconsistencies, and increased the risk of payroll errors, especially due to e-Social compliance requirements.

Puma chose Pipefy to structure automated workflows and incorporate artificial intelligence into its most critical HR processes, starting with employee onboarding. The implementation was carried out in phases, prioritizing the largest operational bottlenecks. With Pipefy, the team built a 21-day automated onboarding workflow, with daily communications sent only on business days. In parallel, AI-powered document reading and validation were implemented, eliminating manual checks and data re-entry. The solution also included the creation of a centralized employee database, reused across multiple HR processes, and the implementation of a self-service HR portal, serving both corporate and retail employees, including those without a corporate email address.

Pipefy became the backbone of Puma’s HR operation, acting as a central layer for execution and governance. Today, more than 10 departments use the platform, with over 29 active processes, more than 10 of them dedicated to Human Resources. All built on standardized workflows and continuous automation.

In employee onboarding, automation drastically reduced manual effort in document verification, brought predictability to the hiring process, and eliminated recurring failures in communication delivery, playing a key role in brand engagement and new hire cultural integration.

The application of AI in document reading and validation, with 90% accuracy, ensured greater data consistency from the very beginning of the employee lifecycle, reducing errors that previously impacted payroll and legal obligations. The volume of more than 10,000 automations executed in a single year, with AI Agents directly involved in a significant portion of this total, highlights the level of operational maturity achieved.

“Today, practically all of our processes are automated, such as hiring, vacations, terminations, and the request portal for Corporate and Retail. This gave us visibility into the volume of requests we handled monthly and annually. These metrics are now part of the indicators we present to the company’s executive leadership and to managers in each area. In the hiring process alone, using AI for document reading, we estimate a gain of around 10 hours per month,” highlights Wanderson Andrade, project lead.

Pipefy enabled HR to absorb growth, expand self-service support, and operate at scale without a proportional increase in headcount, consolidating the platform as the operational foundation of Puma’s HR.

Puma is a global sporting goods brand operating across Latin America through retail stores, distribution centers, and a corporate office. With ongoing expansion plans, the company maintains frequent hiring cycles to support its regional growth.