Employee Onboarding Checklist: A Template for the First 90 Days

Key takeaways

• An onboarding checklist lists every task that gets a new hire ready, each with an owner and a due date. Plan it in six phases: before day one, day one, week one, the first 30 days, days 31-60 and days 61-90.
• Onboarding is shared work. HR, IT, the hiring manager, a buddy or mentor and the new hire each own part of it. Tasks without a named owner are the ones that get missed.
• Give every new hire a buddy or mentor before day one. Match on role, location and experience, brief the buddy, and have them meet weekly in the first month.
• Run onboarding for at least 90 days, with check-ins at 30, 60 and 90 days. Paperwork takes a week. Getting productive and connected takes months.
• Measure what matters: time to productivity, check-in results, early turnover and a short new-hire survey.

Use this page as a working template: copy the tables into your own plan or HR system and adapt them to each role. For the strategy behind it, such as how long onboarding should last and why new hires learn best from colleagues, see our guide to building an effective employee onboarding program.

What Is an Onboarding Checklist?

An onboarding checklist is the list of tasks that takes a new hire from signed offer to productive team member, with an owner and a due date for each. A good one covers the first 90 days, not just the first day, and includes the people a new hire needs to meet as well as the forms, equipment and training.

A checklist is not the same as an onboarding plan. The onboarding plan sets the goals: what the new hire should know, do and deliver by day 30, 60 and 90. The checklist is how you get there. Many large companies keep one company-wide checklist and add a short section for each role.

How to use this template

1. Copy the six phase tables below into a shared document or your HR system.
2. Replace each owner with a named person: “IT” becomes whoever sets up the laptop.
3. Add role-specific tasks: systems, certifications and first projects.
4. Agree the 30-, 60- and 90-day goals with the hiring manager before the start date.
5. Review the checklist with the new hire at each check-in.

Before Day One: Preboarding Checklist

Preboarding covers everything between the accepted offer and the first day. Its job is to clear the forms, equipment and access ahead of time, so day one can be about people and work. Start as soon as the offer is accepted; most tasks need one to two weeks.

Day One Checklist

A new hire should finish day one knowing what their job is for, who their people are and what they’ll do this week. Keep admin to an hour or two, check that everything works, and make sure they share a lunch or coffee with the team and meet their buddy.

Week One Checklist

In week one, the new hire learns how the team works and does a first small piece of real work. The hiring manager holds the first one-on-one and sets a weekly rhythm, and the buddy meets with them at least once more.

First 30 Days Checklist

The first 30 days are for learning the job: the work, the customers, the systems and the unwritten rules. By day 30, a new hire should be handling parts of the role on their own and know who to go to for what. Close the month with a structured 30-day check-in.

Days 31-60 Checklist

Days 31 to 60 shift from learning to contributing. The new hire takes on regular work, gets specific feedback on it and builds relationships beyond their own team. This is also when early problems surface: unclear goals, a buddy who has gone quiet or a skills gap no one spotted.

Days 61-90 Checklist

By day 90, the new hire should be working independently at the level expected for this stage, know the people their work depends on and have goals for the next six months. The 90-day review closes the formal checklist and opens their development plan.

Hiring Manager Onboarding Checklist

The hiring manager owns the result of onboarding: whether the new hire knows what good looks like, gets regular feedback and has the right people around them. Only the manager can do these tasks.

• Before day one: write the 30-60-90 day goals, plan the first-week schedule, choose or approve the buddy and tell the team who is joining and why.
• Day one: be there at the start. Explain what the role is for and how it connects to the team’s goals.
• Week one: hold the first one-on-one, book a weekly one-on-one for the next 90 days and give a first small task with a clear finish.
• Every week: give one piece of specific feedback and ask, “What’s unclear?”
• Days 30, 60 and 90: run the check-in against the written goals and write down the agreed next steps.
• Throughout: introduce the new hire to the people their work depends on, protect time for training and check in with the buddy once a month.

Book the 30-, 60- and 90-day check-ins before the start date. Unscheduled check-ins slip as soon as the new hire seems fine.

Onboarding Buddy and Mentor Checklist

A buddy helps a new hire with the day-to-day: how things work, who to ask and the unwritten rules. A mentor helps with growth. In the first 90 days, either one can follow this short checklist.

• Before day one: send a short hello and set up your first meeting.
• Day one: have lunch or a video coffee, and show them where things are, in the office and in the tools.
• Weeks one to four: meet weekly for about 30 minutes. Answer the questions they may not want to ask their manager, and introduce them to two or three people outside the team.
• Days 31 to 90: meet every two weeks. Ask what’s harder than expected and share how you handled the same situations.
• Throughout: keep what they tell you in confidence. If they seem stuck, encourage them to raise it, or raise it with HR with their agreement.
• Day 90: ask what helped and tell HR.

Sample first buddy meeting (30 minutes)

1. 5 minutes: how is the first day or week going?
2. 10 minutes: how things really work here: which meetings matter, which tools to use for what and who decides.
3. 10 minutes: their questions, however small.
4. 5 minutes: agree the next meeting and one person you’ll introduce them to.

How to Give Every New Hire a Buddy or Mentor at Scale

To give every new hire a buddy or mentor at a large company, make it a standard onboarding step rather than an extra. Build a pool of willing, briefed buddies, match each new hire before day one on a few clear criteria, give buddies a simple guide and check every month that pairs are meeting. Matching by hand works for a handful of hires a month. Beyond that, many companies use matching software that draws on profiles from the HR system and can match a whole start group at once.

Who makes a good buddy

• Has been with the company long enough to know how things work, usually at least a year.
• Does the same or a similar job, but sits outside the new hire’s reporting line, so the new hire can ask anything.
• Has time this quarter. A buddy facing a big deadline will cancel meetings.
• Is respected and willing to be open about how things really work. Last year’s new hires often make good buddies: they remember what was hard.

Matching criteria

How long it lasts and how often they meet

A buddy pairing usually runs for the first 90 days: weekly in the first month, then every two weeks. If the new hire moves on to a mentor, that relationship often runs six to twelve months, with meetings once or twice a month.

How often they meet matters. In a 600-person onboarding buddy pilot at a large technology company, described in a 2022 SHRM article, 56 percent of new hires who met their buddy at least once in their first 90 days said the buddy helped them quickly become productive in their role. Among those who met more than eight times, 97 percent said they were more productive.

How to check it’s working

• Are pairs meeting? Track meetings or send a one-question monthly pulse. Rematch any pair that hasn’t met in three weeks.
• Is it helping? Ask new hires at 30 and 90 days whether their buddy helped them get up to speed.
• Are buddies coping? Limit each buddy to one or two new hires at a time.
• Is the work recognized? Thank buddies publicly and count the role in performance reviews, so good people keep volunteering.

How to Measure Employee Onboarding

Measure onboarding with four numbers: time to productivity, 30-60-90 check-in results, early turnover and a short new-hire survey. Track them by team and by start month, so you can see where onboarding works and where it breaks down.

Five statements for the new-hire survey

1. I know what’s expected of me in my role.
2. I have the tools and access I need to do my job.
3. I know who to ask when I’m stuck.
4. My buddy or mentor has helped me get up to speed.
5. I can see myself working here a year from now.

Set expectations for time to productivity with care. A 2021 Gallup article on onboarding notes that new employees typically take around 12 months to reach peak performance potential. Treat day 90 as a milestone, not the finish line, and keep support going past it, as our employee onboarding program guide explains.

When new hires leave in their first year, look back at their check-ins and survey answers. The warning signs often show early: unclear goals, missing tools or a buddy who stopped meeting. Fixing them is part of a wider plan for employee retention through mentoring.

Common Onboarding Mistakes

Most onboarding problems come from the same few gaps: onboarding ends too soon, no one owns the tasks, and new hires are left to find their own people.

• Stopping after week one. Orientation is not onboarding. Keep the checklist running to day 90.
• Owners like “HR” or “IT.” Name a person for every task, or it waits.
• Equipment and access not ready on day one. Start IT tasks two weeks out and test logins before the start date.
• Too much at once. A week of policy decks and back-to-back meetings with no real work. Spread training out and give a small task early.
• No written goals. Without 30-60-90 day goals, a new hire can’t tell whether they are doing well.
• A buddy in name only. An unbriefed buddy with no time can’t help. Brief them, protect their time and check that they meet.
• Skipping check-ins when things seem fine. Quiet problems are the ones that turn into early resignations.
• Never asking new hires. Ask at 30 and 90 days what to change, then change it.

How Rumi by Chronus Helps With Onboarding

Rumi by Chronus helps talent teams give every new hire the right people from the start, without managing matches in spreadsheets. It brings AI coaching, mentoring and communities into one platform.

• Matching in minutes. Rumi Match uses the AI-powered MatchIQ® algorithm, customizable to your program’s specific needs. Profiles can be imported from an HRIS, LMS or other database, and bulk matching lets you match a whole group of new hires at once.
• Buddies and mentors who’ve done the job. Rumi Mentor pairs your people with coworkers who’ve done the job before. Its AI weighs a dozen factors, including goals, skill gaps, experience, availability, language and location, and every suggested match shows why. With Guided Conversations, every meeting starts with a plan, and Rumi flags a match that’s gone quiet before it fizzles out.
• Help at the moment of need. Rumi Coach reaches out before the moments that matter, so support arrives the week someone is hired or changes teams. When needed, it also matches them with a mentor or your expert coaches.
• One view of every program. Unified Insights brings engagement, meeting cadence and goal progress into one view, and ties mentoring to retention and promotion.

For example, when a new engineer joins an office, Rumi can connect them with an onboarding buddy and invite them to a New Hires community. Rumi doesn’t replace the hiring manager, the buddy or the mentor. It helps HR match people quickly and keeps those relationships on track between check-ins.

Frequently Asked Questions About Onboarding Checklists