Most small firms hire well and onboard badly. The new starter turns up, gets a laptop that doesn’t work and spends the morning wondering who to ask for help. A decent employee onboarding checklist fixes that before it costs you a good hire. It also gives you a record of what was done, which matters when something goes wrong later. This guide sets out what to cover, when to cover it and what to leave out.
In this article, we’re going to discuss how to:
- Plan the admin and legal steps before the employee’s first day
- Structure day one and the first week so people feel useful quickly
- Use check-ins across the first 90 days to catch problems early
What a Good Employee Onboarding Checklist Includes
An employee onboarding checklist is a dated list of tasks, owners and deadlines that takes a new hire from signed offer to confident contributor. The ‘dated’ part matters. A list without owners and deadlines is a wish list, and it tends to die in someone’s inbox by day three.
Split the list into four stages: before day one, day one, the first week and the first 90 days. Give each task one named owner, usually the line manager, someone in HR or finance, or whoever looks after your IT. In a 10-person firm that may all be one person, which is fine as long as the tasks are written down.
Before Day One: Legal and Admin Tasks
Start with the tasks that carry legal weight. You must check that the person has the right to work in the UK before they start, using a manual document check, a Home Office online check or a digital verification provider. Record who did the check and when.
Next, issue the written statement of employment particulars. GOV.UK says the principal statement, covering pay, hours, holiday and place of work, is due on the first day, with the wider statement following within 2 months. Send the contract and principal statement a few days early so the person can read them without pressure.
Then add the practical items: payroll details, a pension enrolment date, emergency contacts and the equipment order. Order the laptop, logins and building pass at least a week ahead. Late kit is easy to prevent and awkward for everyone when it happens. Tell the team who is starting, what they’ll do and who is looking after them.
Day One: Keep the Employee Onboarding Checklist Short
Acas advises that the first day should focus on making the new starter feel welcome and completing essential tasks, rather than loading them with information. Take that literally. A realistic day one covers a proper welcome from the manager, a tour, introductions, a working laptop and logins, the health and safety basics and a clear picture of the first week.
Health and safety isn’t optional paperwork. The HSE says workers are as likely to have an accident in their first 6 months as during the whole of the rest of their working life. Cover fire exits, accident reporting and who to tell about a hazard on day one, and for home workers confirm they have a safe place to work.
End the day with a 10-minute conversation: what made sense, what didn’t and what they need tomorrow.
The First Week: Training and Access
Give the new hire one small, finishable piece of real work in the first week. It teaches more than a stack of reading because they learn how your business actually runs. Pair them with a colleague who isn’t their manager, so they can ask the ‘silly’ questions without worrying how it looks.
Check system access properly. Missing permissions are a classic way to stall a new starter, so build a short access list covering email, shared drives, your CRM or accounting software and any approval tools. Spread product, service or process training across the week in short blocks, and name who delivers each one on the onboarding checklist.
Days 30 to 90: Check-Ins That Catch Problems Early
Book check-ins at the end of week one and at 30, 60 and 90 days. Keep them to 30 minutes and ask the same questions each time: what’s going well, what’s unclear, what’s getting in the way and what do you need from me? Write 2 lines of notes after each one.
Use the 30-day meeting to agree goals for the next 60 days, and pull them from the original job description. If that document is vague, fix it first. Use the 90-day meeting to confirm the role works for both sides and to feed what you learn back into the checklist. This is also where employee retention strategies start, because early clarity costs far less than replacing someone who leaves in month 4.
Common Onboarding Mistakes to Avoid
Three mistakes crop up in small firms again and again.
The first is treating onboarding as an HR task. The line manager owns the new hire’s experience, so give them the employee onboarding checklist and a diary slot, not just an email. The second is front-loading everything. Policies, tools, history and org charts on day one mean none of it sticks, so spread them out. The third is never updating the list. Review it after every hire, drop the steps that didn’t matter and add the ones you forgot.
Conclusion
A good employee onboarding checklist is short, dated and owned by named people. Start it before the offer is signed, keep day one light and use the first 90 days to find problems while they’re cheap to fix. For more practical guidance for founders and managers, see our entrepreneurship resources.
- Give every task an owner and a deadline
- Finish legal and admin tasks before day one and keep day one light
- Review the checklist after every hire
FAQs About Employee Onboarding
What should be on an employee onboarding checklist?
At minimum: a right to work check, a written statement of employment particulars, payroll and pension details, equipment and system access, a day one plan and scheduled check-ins. Add role-specific training and a named colleague to ask for help.
Is an induction a legal requirement in the UK?
Acas says there’s no legal requirement to run an induction. You do, however, have a legal responsibility for the health and safety of every worker, new starters included.
How long should onboarding last?
A 90-day plan works for most roles, with the heaviest support in the first week. Roles with complex training may need longer, so set the length by how long it takes the person to work unaided.
Who should own the onboarding process?
The line manager should own the new hire’s experience, with HR or an office manager handling the paperwork. In a very small firm one person may do both, which works as long as the tasks are written down.
Sources Consulted
- GOV.UK: Written statement of employment particulars
- GOV.UK: Checking a job applicant’s right to work
- Acas: Planning an induction programme
- HSE: New to the job, health and safety
Disclaimer
This article is for information only and doesn’t constitute legal, HR or financial advice. Employment rules change, so check current guidance for your own situation.
