Free New Hire Checklist Template For Employers
An effective employee onboarding process is crucial for enhancing retention and productivity. For example, research from Brandon Hall Group found that businesses with a strong onboarding process can improve new hire retention by 82% and productivity by over 70%!
A new hire checklist will help provide a clear structure, ensuring nothing gets missed and that everyone’s aware of their roles and responsibilities.
Use my new hire checklist template to save you time and help you onboard new hires more effectively.
New Hire Checklist Template
This new hire checklist template helps guide you through the process of what to do after sending an offer letter and hearing back that the candidate wants to accept the position.
You can use it throughout someone’s first month to make sure you're covering the entire hiring process, from giving a warm employee welcome on your new hire's first day to logistics like getting them set up with a contract, direct deposit form, and other important documents.
Most of the steps in this employee onboarding checklist would be considered part of the employee orientation program.
It is designed to help you get your new team members started quickly and efficiently, and will take you all the way from making an official job offer to the start of your new employee’s first day and first week of work.
Get our new hire checklist template!
What Is An Onboarding Checklist?
An onboarding checklist is a structured list of tasks and activities designed to guide new employees through the onboarding process.
It ensures that key steps are completed to help new hires acclimate to the company, understand their roles, and become productive team members.
What Should Be Included In A New Hire Checklist?
While organizations will inevitably have their own additions to the onboarding process, in general a new hire checklist will include:
- Employment forms: Complete essential documents such as tax forms (W-4, I-9), direct deposit details, and employment contracts.
- Welcome experience: Send a welcome letter, prepare welcome kits, and introduce new hires through internal communication channels like email or Slack.
- Company policies overview: Provide access to the employee handbook, code of conduct, and compliance-related guidelines.
- Technology setup: Ensure access to necessary tools, including software, email accounts, and hardware like computers and phones.
- Meetings: Schedule 1:1 with the manager and attend relevant team and department meetings.
- Role-specific training: Schedule initial new hire training sessions and explain relevant systems and job-specific processes.
- Team introductions and orientation: Organize meetings with team members, managers, and key department leaders.
- Benefits enrollment: Offer guidance on selecting employee benefits such as healthcare, retirement plans, and other available benefits.
Why Is A New Hire Checklist Important?
A new hire checklist is a useful tool because it helps ensure a smooth, consistent, and efficient onboarding process. Here a few reasons why creating one is useful:
- Organization and efficiency: Keeps onboarding tasks on track and prevents important steps from being missed.
- Compliance and legal protection: Ensures completion of required forms and adherence to labor laws and company policies.
- Positive first impression: Creates a welcoming experience that boosts new hires' morale and engagement from day one.
- Faster productivity: Helps new starters get the tools, knowledge, and support they need to contribute effectively in a shorter timeframe.
- Employee retention: Helps reduce new hire turnover by creating a structured and supportive onboarding experience.
- Consistency across teams: Helps standardize onboarding, ensuring all new hires have a similar, high-quality experience.
Risks Of Poor Onboarding
The differences between a structured, personalized onboarding experience that uses a new hire checklist and a sloppy, disjointed one are stark.
A poor onboarding experience can result in:
- High employee turnover: New hires may feel unsupported or disconnected, leading to early resignations. A recent Paychex survey found that 80% of new hires who felt undertrained planned to quit their job.
- Low productivity: Inadequate training and unclear expectations can delay job readiness.
- Compliance issues: Missing essential paperwork or failing to explain company policies can result in legal and regulatory violations.
- Damaged employer reputation: Negative onboarding experiences can lead to poor employer reviews and hinder talent acquisition efforts.
- Increased training costs: Without a structured onboarding process, more time and resources may be spent on correcting mistakes and retraining
- Team disruption: Unprepared employees can create additional workload for managers and colleagues, causing frustration and inefficiencies.
How To Create An Effective New Hire Checklist: 4 Key Steps
The template included in this post is a great starting points and fit for purpose, but if you want to create your own checklist, here are some steps to follow:
1. Define key stages
The first step is to break your onboarding into key stages e.g. pre-boarding, orientation, first month etc.
Outline what new hires should learn, do, and achieve at each stage:
- Pre-boarding: The period between offer acceptance and the first day, focused on paperwork, IT setup, and providing key information to help new hires feel prepared and welcomed.
- Orientation: The first day (or few days) covers introducing new hires to the team and the culture, policies, and tools they’ll use.
- First month: The adjustment phase where employees start hands-on training, shadowing colleagues, contributing to projects, and meeting performance expectations while receiving ongoing support.
- 30-60 days: Deeper integration into the role, increasing responsibilities, and building cross-functional relationships. This stage includes performance check-ins and early feedback discussions.
- 60-90 days: Full transition into role ownership, setting long-term goals, and contributing at a higher level. By this stage, employees should feel confident, engaged, and aligned with company expectations.
Read more about these in our article on creating a 30-60-90 day onboarding plan.
2. Cover essentials
Stakeholders such as HR, finance, IT, managers, and leadership should collaborate to determine roles and responsibilities and the essential tasks for each member of the onboarding team and the new starter.
For example, assignments for the preboarding stage might include:
- Send offer letter and receive signed copy [HR + new starter]
- Complete background check (if applicable) [HR and/or legal]
- Collect tax & payroll forms (e.g., W-4, direct deposit info) [HR + new starter]
- Set up email, software access, and company accounts [IT and/or manager]
- Order and configure laptop and equipment [HR or IT]
- Share welcome email with first-day details [HR]
- Assign an onboarding buddy or mentor [Manager]
- Announce new hire to the team. [Manager]
4. Use automation where possible
Onboarding software tools can automate typical onboarding tasks like sending welcome emails, reminding people about outstanding tasks, and provide a centralized place for onboarding materials like the checklist.
5. Keep it engaging
Make onboarding fun with interactive training, welcome messages, and a buddy system to help new hires feel connected and supported.
Some ideas courtesy or people ops consultant, Rita Witteck:
- Onboarding buddy programs: Pairing new hires with experienced team members helps them build relationships and understand company culture from day one. Ideally, the buddy gets in contact before their first day.
- Interactive Team Introductions: Host activities like virtual coffee chats, trivia games, or “two truths and a lie” to make introductions engaging and memorable.
- Include your product: Find a way of including your product into the onboarding. At a previous company, we asked every new team member to build a fake career site full of information about themselves.
- Cultural welcome kits: Include items like company swag, a handwritten welcome note, or a list of team traditions to help them feel connected.
- First week rituals: Organize a team lunch, or a “get-to-know-you” Slack channel for informal bonding (Canopy is a useful integration here). Details matter, so make sure you check in with new hires on things like dietary restrictions before the first day.
Key Success Factors For This Checklist
Finally, some key factors to keep in mind to maximize the success of this template:
- Transparency: minimize surprises for the new hire.
- Preparation: get meetings, training, and people scheduled in advance to help.
- Patience: be patient with your new team member as they make mistakes.
- Paced: don’t overwhelm the new team member, which can lead to things being missed.
- Resources: let them know who key individuals are, how to contact them, and where resources like employee handbooks, benefits package information, emergency contact information, health insurance information, and policy manuals can be found.
If you make it a priority to demonstrate transparency, be prepared, practice patience, and equip the new employee with the resources they need, it will go a long way to ensuring a positive and productive start to employee onboarding.
