Employee Onboarding Template [FREE]

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Employee onboarding templates are an effective way to track new starters' journeys and guarantee they have all the tools they need for success. Read Bridge's checklist to discover how to deliver a meaningful employee experience even before day one.

Your new hire has accepted their role, signed the contract, and their start date is approaching! It’s an exciting time to welcome a new employee on board and there’s loads to do to make sure they have everything they need to settle in, feel like part of the team, and start making a difference from day one.

Whether you’re a manager or an HR/L&D professional, use this checklist to make your employees’ onboarding process seamless and create a meaningful, memorable experience.

BEFORE DAY ONE

Give your new employee as much information as you can before their first day. That includes basics such as their schedule and which documentation your HR department will need to see. This guarantees that their first day will be as stress-free as possible. Supplying plenty of information and keeping in regular contact helps to make the onboarding experience run smoothly.

Let their co-workers/team know you’ve found the perfect fit and share some of their interview highlights. It gets their team excited about their new co-worker, their strengths, and the contributions they’ll soon be making. It’s also a good opportunity for their teammates to think about any training or knowledge they can share.

Send an email with question prompts to find out more about how your employees like to communicate, what makes them feel appreciated, and what sort of workplace culture matters to them. These questions help their new team and managers get to know them and the things that make them feel appreciated and seen. You can also ask for fun facts to help current employees find common ground and talking points on day one.

Make sure they have access to all of the equipment and software they need before their first day and send them their login details via email. If they’ll be working in the office, set up their workstation. For remote employees, equipment should be sent to them ahead of time along with a follow-up to make sure it’s correctly set up.

This one’s for your remote and hybrid workers. Email them a series of questions to find out what their current workspace looks like and what their dream setup is. From here, you can order and send them whatever they need based on their own taste.

DAY ONE

Day one is when new starters need all of the important information about your company, its policies, and everyday life. It’s also the first point of contact they’ll have with some of their colleagues. Keep day one short and avoid overloading them with information!

Record and send a quick video from their teammates welcoming them on board. Make this personal, using the information you already know about them! A friendly welcome message can help to break the ice and make them feel like part of the team.

Day one is a chance for their manager to give them a tour of the office and introduce them to their team. If they’re working remotely, managers should still offer a run-down of the company, the team, and their workflow.

Cover their responsibilities and the tools they’ll be using to do their job. This is also a good opportunity to introduce them to your learning management system (LMS) if you have training materials stored centrally.

Send your employee handbook, details about organizational structure, policies, and anything else that might help them feel more familiar with your company. You want to make sure they’ve got all the information they need to be sure of your policies and structure.

Match them up with a colleague who can assist them if they have questions and offer them support in the early days.

Your HR department can provide information about policies and benefits and will check relevant documentation. Make sure new starters know who to ask if they have any questions, plus how they go about raising HR requests.

Arrange for a welcome card to arrive with a short, handwritten message from someone who was involved in the hiring process. Their note should welcome them on board and call out something memorable they found impressive about them while hiring or during the interview.

DURING THE FIRST WEEK

New employees take the first week to find their feet and familiarize themselves with their new roles and responsibilities. The first week is a good time to ease them into work, schedule any training they need to complete, and show them your processes.

Their training needs will differ based on their role, but it’s likely that they’ll need to complete onboarding training to help them familiarize themselves with the company.

Invite new hires to a team meeting where they can break the ice with their co-workers and learn more about their role from their more experienced colleagues. If you’re based in one location, schedule a team lunch or an activity away from the office, and for remote workers, arrange a team call and have lunch delivered to them.

During the first week, new employees should meet with their manager every day. Managers need to be sure their new hires are comfortable with their workload, know what’s expected of them, and have everything they need. After the first week, 1:1s can start to become less frequent.

BEYOND THE FIRST WEEK

After the first week, you’ve successfully laid the foundations for success! New employees have the information they need and understand what their role entails. You should still schedule regular catch-ups with them alongside team meetings and one-on-ones in the early days to check they’re making good progress and have everything they need.

What does your new hire want to achieve? It’s time to set performance goals based on the skills they want to develop, the knowledge they want to learn, and where they want to take their career.

Once all mandatory training is completed and you know what they want to accomplish, you can build and distribute a development plan with learning materials to help them build their skills for the long term.

Once your new employee is settled into their team role, it’s time to introduce them to the rest of your business. Seeing how their work fits into the bigger picture and who they may be collaborating with on future projects reinforces their growing sense of being a valued part of the organization.

Going forward, you’ll want to keep in regular contact with your employee. A one-on-one with a manager shouldn’t just be for quarterly reviews or yearly appraisals but an ongoing point of contact where matters can be raised and addressed in a less formal setting.

Find a Tool to Make Learning Easy

Bridge’s LMS makes creating and delivering high-quality training programs easy. With Bridge, you have the power to give your employees the tools they need when they need them—schedule learning into manageable chunks, control when learning happens, and schedule check-ins at key points throughout their training program to stay connected.

Bridge’s learning solution is flexible and can be personalized to meet the needs of every single member of your organization.

Picture of Akash Savdharia

Akash Savdharia

Akash is an entrepreneurial technology executive with over 10 years of experience bringing SaaS products to market that solve impactful data-driven problems. Prior to joining Bridge, Akash was the co-founder and CEO of Patheer, an AI-powered talent marketplace to help companies grow and retain employees by empowering them to discover new career paths and opportunities internally. At Patheer, he drove the company's vision, strategy, and products, which revolutionized the enterprise talent and career mobility space. In September 2020, Learning Technologies Group acquired Patheer to bolster its product and technology expertise in this fast growing market. At Bridge, Akash is the Vice President of Talent Solutions, and continues to drive the vision, growth, and strategy for skills and talent mobility.

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