Employee Onboarding Checklist- Building a Plan From Scratch

Building an onboarding plan is crucial to ensure that the talent you’ve worked so hard to acquire fast becomes acquainted with your processes, teams, and masters their career transition seamlessly. Saving time, money and sharply aligning all recruitment initiatives with the company’s corporate goals, new joiners can dive straight into productivity mode with all the resources on their fingertips to make magic happen.

For businesses that are still missing an onboarding plan, we’ve made a quick checklist to help you get started, and make your employer brand stand out from the crowd. Once you’ve identified the talent that can best serve as an addition to your team, here’s what to do:

Step 1

• Employment Agreement/Contract highlighting salary, job description, working hours, reimbursements, possible bonuses, performance targets and assigned reporting manager.
• Non disclosure agreement to ensure a clear understanding about data protection, steps to take to safeguard company information, and any legal consequences that may be taken if the employee fails to comply.
• Employee handbook with a wide range of information including business vision, mission, objectives, departments, code of conduct, and additional resources available to help your new joiner grow and polish their skill sets as a highly valued part of the workforce.
• Direct deposit coordination with your finance department; the new joiner should be added to the payroll, and their salary transfer approvals be in place to secure hassle free payments depending on the disbursement cycle.
• Employee’s online accounts including email, CRM/CMS accounts, ATS access, etc- the new member should also be assigned an employee ID.
• Technology equipment such as laptop, headset, internet access should be authorized and procured based on the IT department’s SOPs.

Step 2

1 week prior to the new employee starting work, the next step of your onboarding plan will cover:

• Planning team meetups and introduction; building relationships is vital to help fresh hires feel welcomed and motivated.
• In case of uniforms, or even complimentary branded attire being a part of the onboarding plan (highly recommended), ensure you have the right sizing information.
• Arrange a welcome lunch with key management figures to help gain familiarity with members across the company hierarchy.
• Outline the new joiner’s first assignment or project to support their efforts of easing into the new role.

Step 3

2 weeks prior to your new employee joining, do confirm that required paperwork and technology aspects are in place. This will include (but is not limited to):
The much awaited day of joining is finally here, and you’re excited to have your new recruit come on board. Some thoughtful gestures to incorporate into your onboarding plan will be:

• A welcome letter or company wide email announcing your new joiner’s first day at the office.
• An organized packet containing relevant HR documents, office map, instructions on connecting with the IT team to aid set up, and of course the first week’s schedule.
• Give your new hire an office tour and allow them to meet people beyond their direct team too.
• Host a structured information session to explain key points of the employment agreement ranging from perks, vacation time, benefits, insurance coverage, salary breakdown, allowances, etc.
• Get the new employee starting on the first task ideally under the mentorship of a ell experienced team members; share direct feedback and clarify any misunderstandings to align outputs with performance targets.

Step 4

1 month into joining, it’s time to review how well has your new employee performed compared to the set expectations:

• Schedule a meeting or call to go over performance highs and lows to acknowledge efforts, and find ways to overcome performance deficiencies.
• Ask for feedback, concerns and challenges that are being faced by the employee; these can be incorporated into future onboarding plans to spearhead consistent improvement for other hires in the pipeline

Conclusion

Having an organized, step-by-step plan to ace onboarding and provide your hires with a sense of clarity and belonging is pivotal for businesses serious about retaining their best talent. Using a software solution to automate these tasks is highly recommended, but regardless of your choice, your ultimate focus is to leave a great first impression. Providing a brilliant, morale boosting and energetic introduction to the employee helps merge into their designated teams as seamlessly as possible- and helps your employer brand reach new heights of talent attraction.