- Onboarding checklists gives the new hire a great first impression of an organization. It helps new employees learn about their roles, the company’s visions and goals.
For hiring managers and employers, it is a way of conveying the values of their company, and also keeping track with the tasks that can help improve employee productivity. In this article, we would define a checklist, discuss steps for creating this checklist, give examples and also provide useful templates.
What is an onboarding checklist?
An onboarding checklist is a document that organizes the steps to prepare for a new hire or employee resuming in an organization for the hiring manager, general manager and other members of the organization. Since the onboarding process is not just about paperwork as it welcomes new employees to the team, the checklist streamlines this process.
It should contain the recruitment process, the introduction of all departments to the employee and details about their new job. The company’s culture and work ethics, orientation and training should also be part of a checklist.
How to create an onboarding checklist
Follow these steps to create a comprehensive onboarding checklist:
1.Assess the needs of the role
The first step to creating a checklist is to find out if there are existing requirements for the role you are working on. In the case where the company had guidelines for onboarding, go through the guidelines and use them to create your onboarding checklist.
2.Separate the checklist document into sections
To increase the organization and ensure the checklist meets its objectives, you can consider dividing your checklist into different sections. You can do this by creating different sections for each stage of the onboarding process. Consider the following sections:
- Contracts – This is the first section of the onboarding checklist as it contains all information about the employee’s contract with the company. It includes all hiring paperwork and a privacy agreement that guides the employment.
- Accounting – The employee’s checklist should contain information about the employee’s compensation and other benefits like housing and healthcare. Including this section in the checklist gives the new hire a quick overview of the salary structure of their new role.
- Training – In this section, you include details concerning employee training and orientation, dress and other professional ethics and other specific software training tools.
- Company culture – This section of the checklist would contain every detail about your company. This may include brand history, mission, social aspects of the company and even a short directory of senior members of the company.
- Determine the tasks for the first day
This is the first day of the employee and also your opportunity to make the first impression as a company. To ensure you achieve this, certain preparations should be in place so your new employee will not feel lost or uncertain about their responsibilities.
To schedule the activities of the first day, your plans should cover compliance, culture, connection and company. When you cover these four Cs, you provide the opportunity for your employee to know more about critical business areas, ethics and other factors.
- Always ask for feedback
The efficiency of a checklist would not be complete if you don’t give and ask for feedback. The first few weeks at the company for the employee would be an interesting experience, receiving attention from everyone, making new friends and even discovering new growth opportunities.
However, all of these can go away if they are left to figure out policies, ethics, role expectations, success rate and other important factors on their own.