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Hi, I’m Marina

I’ve led People teams across countries and today I specialise in People Automation, using AI, automation, and practical experiments that turn ideas into impact.

This article is part of my No New Tool Required series, where I share smart, lightweight experiments to free up People team time and generate better insights with the tools we already have.

🔗 Let’s connect on LinkedIn

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💡 Why This Matters

Every new hire needs a laptop, accessories, and sometimes peripherals. Often, we let people choose what they need, particularly in a remote context.

Yet the process to collect their choices is often:

• 😩 Manual (email back-and-forth)
• ❌ Inconsistent (different templates, different answers)
• 🕐 Unclear responsibilities and delays (someone in IT waiting for an email that was never sent by HR)

But all the information already exists. You already know who’s joining and what their role is. We already know who is entitled to what.

So instead of sending messages back and forth, you can let automation handle it:

• We add their name to the spreadsheet.
• The new starter gets a link.
• They choose what they need.
• We get pinged instantly when they submit it.
• Et voilà - all steps done in under a minute 🪄

I built this using Google Sheets, Gmail, Slack and Zapier, but you could replicate it in Make or n8n too.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ep896zYeVU1Ff64-TkuvM9b1joynIrVD/view?usp=sharing

🧭 The Principle

🛠 My Quick Build

🧩 Create the Pieces

🧶 Tie Them Together