A new hire's first week sets the tone for their whole tenure, and "show up and figure it out" is how you lose good people early. A real onboarding plan starts the moment they accept the offer and carries through their first day, week, and month.
Below is what a strong plan covers, plus the templates to build yours fast.
Get the Templates
- Onboarding Plan for New Team Member Template: start here for a cohesive first-day, first-week, and first-month experience.
- Checklists for Internship Host Companies: before, during, and after the internship.
- Start, During, and Close-of-Business Checklists for setting communication and reporting norms.
- Timesheet Template for tracking time and invoicing.
- Onboard Yourself in 30 Days, geared to Chiefs of Staff but useful for any hire, based on Matt Mochary's shadowing process. To learn more about the shadowing process from the CEO's perspective, read Onboarding a New Hire or Executive.
Why Onboarding Matters
Done well, onboarding speeds up time-to-productivity, builds early relationships, boosts new-hire confidence with regular feedback, clarifies roles and expectations, and improves retention of the talent you worked hard to land. Done poorly, it costs you all of that.
What to Cover in Orientation
The basics on day one: mission, vision, and values (and how they apply to the role); policies and procedures; benefits and paperwork; a tour or virtual intro to coworkers; workstation setup; software, logins, and security access; and any required training.
What Ongoing Onboarding Looks Like
Orientation is the quick-start; onboarding is the support that follows. Build in regular manager 1:1s, a buddy paired with a coworker, task-specific training, a starter project, performance check-ins to tailor further training, and clear goal-setting.
Five Tips That Make It Work
- Make it engaging, not a boring slide marathon.
- Ask for feedback with short surveys, and use it.
- Keep evolving the process as the company grows.
- Involve more people (managers, HR, peers) so new hires build relationships from day one.
- Standardize with checklists so every hire gets a consistent experience.
And don't overwhelm them: break it into digestible chunks, lead with the most important information, and mix in tours and intros to give mental breaks.
What It Looks Like in Practice
Here's how one client put the templates to work:
"…we recently hired a new team member with no plan or process to onboard her. We mentioned this to Malloy, and they generously shared all their onboarding resources and templates. Less than 24 hours before she started, we built a cohesive set of onboarding activities for her first day, first week, and first month. The new hire was super impressed!" – Rachel Zayas, CEO of AGED Diagnostics
Copy the templates above and build your plan before your next hire's first day. For the hiring side, pair them with Who: The A Method for Hiring and our Position Description Templates.