Managing
A complete employee onboarding checklist covers five phases: before day one, day one, week one, the first 30 days and days 31 to 90, and every task has a named owner (HR, IT, the manager or a buddy). If you only get three things right, make them these: equipment and access that work on day one, a named buddy from the first morning, and a first real piece of work finished within two weeks. Paperwork is part of onboarding. It is not the part that decides whether people stay.
Most onboarding checklists are written by the function that owns the paperwork, so they are long on contracts and policies and short on the things a new joiner actually worries about: Who do I ask? What does good look like here? Is anyone expecting me? This checklist keeps the administration, assigns every task an owner, and adds the items that make the difference between someone who is processed and someone who lands.
Use it as written, or copy the tables into your own tracker. For the manager's side of the conversations (what to say on day one, the day-30 check-in), and for anyone onboarding their first hire as a first-time manager, see our guide on how to onboard a new team member. This page is the checklist; that one is the how-to.
The gap between offer and start date is where many joiners start to wonder whether they made the right choice. Silence makes it worse.
| Task | Owner | Done when |
|---|---|---|
| Send a welcome message: start time, place or link, who they will meet first, what to bring | Manager | Joiner has replied |
| Contract, tax and right-to-work documents, as your country requires | HR | All signed before day one |
| Order laptop, phone and any equipment | IT | Delivered and tested |
| Create email, chat, calendar and core tool accounts | IT | Test login works |
| Assign a buddy (a peer, not the manager) and tell them what the role involves | Manager | Buddy has a lunch or call in the diary |
| Plan the first week, hour by hour for day one | Manager | Calendar invites sent |
| Choose the first real task they will finish within two weeks | Manager | Task written down |
| Tell the team who is joining, when, and why the role exists | Manager | Team announcement sent |
| Task | Owner | Done when |
|---|---|---|
| Someone meets them at the door or on the first call, by name | Manager | First thirty minutes are with the manager |
| Equipment works and they can log in to everything they need | IT | No waiting for access |
| Explain why the role exists and what success looks like at 90 days | Manager | Joiner can say it back |
| Introduce them to the team and the buddy | Manager | Lunch or a call with the buddy |
| Walk through the week's plan | Manager | Joiner has the plan in writing |
| Essential policies only: safety, security, how to get paid | HR | Under an hour, the rest can wait |
| End-of-day check-in: what was confusing today? | Manager | Ten minutes, before they leave |
On day one, the only thing a new joiner will remember clearly is whether anyone was expecting them.
| Task | Owner | Done when |
|---|---|---|
| One-to-one meetings with the five or six people they will work with most | Manager | Meetings booked by day two |
| Shadow real work: sit in on a client call, a review, a team meeting | Buddy | At least three sessions |
| Share a who to ask about what list | Buddy | Joiner has it saved |
| Share the unwritten rules: how decisions really get made, meeting norms, response-time expectations | Buddy | Fifteen-minute conversation |
| Start the first real task | Manager | Joiner knows the deadline |
| Role-specific training on the core tools | Team lead | Joiner can do the basic workflow alone |
| First proper one-to-one | Manager | End of week one |
| Task | Owner | Done when |
|---|---|---|
| Finish the first real piece of work, and get specific feedback on it | Manager | Within two weeks |
| Weekly one-to-ones | Manager | None cancelled |
| Agree three to five goals for the first 90 days | Manager and joiner | Written down and shared |
| Meet people outside the immediate team: key partners, a senior leader | Manager | At least three conversations |
| Remaining compliance training | HR | Completed by day 30 |
| Day-30 check-in: what is working, what is not, what surprised them | Manager | Notes recorded |
| Ask the joiner what the onboarding got wrong | HR or manager | Feedback captured |
| Task | Owner | Done when |
|---|---|---|
| Hand over ownership of real work, not just tasks | Manager | Joiner owns at least one outcome |
| Feedback on the 90-day goals at day 60 | Manager | Mid-point conversation held |
| Fewer buddy check-ins, more independent work | Buddy | Joiner asks the buddy less often |
| Day-90 review: goals, strengths, what to develop next | Manager | Development plan agreed |
| Joiner rates their onboarding honestly | HR | Results fed into the next joiner's plan |
Every team has unwritten rules: who really decides, whether let's discuss later means later or never, whether cameras go on, how fast people reply. New joiners spend weeks inferring them, and get some wrong in public. Ten minutes with a buddy who simply says them out loud saves a great deal of awkwardness. Some organisations teach culture through play instead, and our guide to employee onboarding games covers what works.
The fastest way to make someone feel they belong is to let them contribute. A small, real, finished piece of work in the first two weeks does more for confidence than any welcome pack. Choose it before they arrive.
Ask new joiners to keep a running list of questions, and go through it in every one-to-one. It tells you what your onboarding does not explain, and it gives a hesitant person permission to ask.
When several people join at once, a shared induction builds a peer network that lasts well beyond the first month. See induction programme ideas for formats that hold up in a big group.
A completed checklist tells you the tasks were done, not that the joiner landed. Watch these instead:
To see where your onboarding stands overall, the free onboarding health check asks twelve questions across the first week, the first ninety days, the manager's part and how culture is taught, and gives you a written report naming the weakest stage. Ask a manager and a recent joiner to take it separately and compare the two.
Onboarding is where new joiners decide whether this team is one they can trust, and the first weeks map closely onto the forming stage in Tuckman's model. The checklist gets the logistics out of the way so the people part has room.
Tour De Force runs this as live, experiential training for teams worldwide, online and in person. Talk to us, or play The Weekly Challenge from our gamified learning apps to see the method in ten minutes.
Questions
Tasks for five phases: before day one (welcome message, contracts, equipment, accounts, buddy), day one (a personal welcome, working access, why the role exists), week one (key introductions, shadowing, the unwritten rules, a first task), the first 30 days (a finished piece of work, weekly one-to-ones, 90-day goals) and days 31 to 90 (real ownership, a day-60 conversation and a day-90 review). Every task should have a named owner.
A way of staging the first three months. In the first 30 days the joiner learns the role, meets key people and finishes a first piece of work. By day 60 they work more independently and get feedback on their 90-day goals. By day 90 they own real outcomes and agree a development plan with their manager.
Responsibility is shared. HR owns contracts and compliance, IT owns equipment and access, a buddy helps with day-to-day questions and unwritten rules, and the manager owns everything that decides whether the person succeeds: expectations, introductions, the first task, feedback and regular one-to-ones.
Meet their manager first, get equipment and access working, understand why their role exists and what success looks like at 90 days, meet the team and their buddy, and see the plan for the week. Keep policies to the essentials; a first day spent reading documents is the most common onboarding mistake.
Look at time to first real contribution, whether the joiner can name the people they need by day 30, honest feedback from joiners about their first month, whether one-to-ones actually happened, and how many people leave within the first few months. The free Tour De Force onboarding health check scores the process in twelve questions.
Keep reading
Twelve questions on whether new joiners land: week one, ninety days, the manager and the culture.
GuideThe manager's 90-day plan, with what to say on day one and day thirty.
GuideTeaching culture through play, and when gamifying it backfires.
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