Top 7 employee onboarding templates

So you’ve finalized your exciting new hire. You’ve been through the rough and rigorous hiring process and experienced some ups and downs. Everything is finally falling into place. 

But wait, the hiring process doesn’t stop here. There’s a connecting road ahead to onboard this new person. As HR leaders, you’re fully aware of how properly onboarding a new joiner is key to making sure that they start off on the right foot. According to Gallup analytics, people who have excellent onboarding experiences are 2.6 times more likely to be satisfied at work and stay with the company.

To help guarantee an effective onboarding experience, use employee onboarding templates to guide the process and create a meaningful start for your new colleague.

<<Download free onboarding templates and start everyone off on the right foot.>>

What are employee onboarding templates?

Organizations need to put a great deal of thought into how to best onboard new people. With so much to consider, it’s easy to miss details or overlook critical steps. And as Payapps discovered, manual onboarding processes sacrifice efficiency and team member experience.

That’s where employee onboarding templates are a game-changer—the pre-made documents and checklists lower the odds of important onboarding processes slipping through the cracks.

Here you’ll find seven free employee onboarding checklist templates for various roles. They can be used directly or adapted and used as a jumping-off point for your own onboarding checklists.

These employee onboarding templates cover the following roles:

1. General onboarding
2. Remote onboarding
3. Developer
4. Sales team member
5. Marketing team member
6. Manager-level team
7. Executive-level team

<<Download free onboarding templates and start everyone off on the right foot.>>

Important employee onboarding templates 

Help new team members make a smooth transition into their roles by using the free employee onboarding templates below.

1. General onboarding checklist

This general onboarding checklist serves as an overall roadmap of what to cover with your new team member before their start date, on their first day, during their first week, and over their first three months. It’s not specific to any one role, making it easy for you to modify based on the positions you’re currently looking to fill.

Before start date

• Complete employee profile with personal details
• Send documents for signature
• Set up IT materials (computer, network, software, access, permissions)
• Send company introduction email/message
• Send company handbook, values, and policies
• Add to payroll
• Assign mentor/buddy
• Set up role-specific training
• Prepare welcome message to start onboarding
• Start pre-boarding (company reading materials, org-chart, schedule 1:1 meetings)

First day

• Introductory tour (virtual, in-person)
• Deliver company swag (or place on desk)
• Send welcome email with links to start onboarding
• Introduce new colleague to the team
• Finalize documentation and paperwork
• Schedule lunch with manager/buddy

First month

• Transfer day-to-day activities
• Complete company training modules (health & safety, time & attendance policies, etc.)
• Introduce learning & development systems
• Join company events (happy hours, town halls, lunches)
• Meet key people in the company (IT, department heads, management team)
• Set short term projects to be completed
• Schedule first 30-day review meeting with manager/HR
• Follow up on onboarding tasks and completion
• Schedule 1:1 meetings with managers and team

First 90 days

• Assign first projects
• Schedule advanced training modules
• Set long term goals
• Schedule six-month, nine-month, and one-year review meetings
• Complete onboarding tasks
• Send onboarding survey for feedback

2. Remote onboarding checklist

Remote onboarding involves unique challenges and stages, starting even before day one. A structured plan keeps things organized and sets your new team members up for professional success.

This remote onboarding checklist structures the first 90 days into 30-day increments, with each increment focusing on a specific set of remote unique needs and how to master them.

<<Download free remote onboarding checklist>>

3. Developer onboarding checklist template

This new joiner onboarding template has been designed specifically for new developer hires. It goes through the basic steps of onboarding a new recruit into the developer position and gives an outline for you to adapt as you see fit, and pass forward to managers if needed.

Before start date

• Complete employee profile with personal details
• Send documents for signature
• Set up IT materials (computer, network, software, access, permissions)
• Send company introduction email/message
• Send company handbook, values, and policies
• Add to payroll
• Assign mentor/buddy
• Set up developer-specific training
• Prepare welcome message to start onboarding
• Start pre-boarding (company reading materials, org-chart, schedule 1:1 meetings)

First day

• Introductory tour (virtual, in-person)
• Deliver company swag (or place on desk)
• Send welcome email with links to start onboarding
• Introduce new developer to the team
• Finalize workstation setup
• Give an initial tour of tech stack, knowledge bases, and best practices
• Finalize documentation and paperwork
• Schedule lunch with manager/buddy

First month

• Complete company training modules (health & safety, time & attendance policies, etc.)
• Introduce learning & development systems
• Guide through dev processes, workflows, codebase, and code style
• Assign short term tasks and projects for hands-on experience
• Conduct regular feedback loops
• Join company events (happy hours, town halls, lunches)
• Meet key people in the company (IT, department heads, management team)
• Schedule first 30-day review meeting with manager/HR
• Follow up on onboarding tasks and completion
• Schedule 1:1 meetings with managers and team

First 90 days

• Provide opportunities to shadow experienced team members to learn debugging and problem solving best practices
• Schedule advanced training modules
• Set long term goals
• Schedule six-month, nine-month, and one-year review meetings
• Complete onboarding tasks
• Send onboarding survey for feedback

4. Sales team member onboarding checklist template

The sales department is a busy and bustling place to be. This means that it can sometimes be overwhelming for new hires and things can be left by the wayside in an attempt to get them up and running straight away. 

This template has been designed to make sure that each box is checked off for new sales team members. With a focus on targets and sales goals, you can be sure that your new recruit will start off on the right foot. 

5. Marketing team member onboarding checklist template

Marketing is a key aspect of any business. Any new person will have to hit the ground running in a fast-paced environment. There are many ins and outs of an organization’s marketing team, so a thorough onboarding process is vital. 

6. Manager-level team member onboarding checklist template

Starting a new job at a managerial level is complicated. There are a lot of things to consider and it’s important to ramp up quickly. But while there are a lot of big things that need to be done, it’s just as important to make sure the smaller ones are checked off too. 

This template was designed to cover everything from the micro to the macro. It includes meetings with both the staff that will be working under the manager and the staff above them so that everyone can properly integrate and lines of communication can open up.

7. Executive-level team member onboarding checklist template

Executive onboarding can be a very complex process. There is a higher degree of financial risk if an executive-level team member isn’t trained properly, so this onboarding process has to be done correctly and to the best of your ability. 

This employee onboarding template is perhaps the most open to modification, as the executive structure at each company can vary to some extent. It includes key elements, such as forming an executive development plan, as well as setting up introductory meetings with stakeholders and other key points of contact.

<<Download free onboarding templates and start everyone off on the right foot.>>

Bonus: Employee onboarding documents checklist

With so many steps involved in the onboarding process, an employee onboarding documents checklist is a handy tool for maintaining consistency. Make sure the following documents are ready and accessible so new team members can feel prepared and confident from day one.

1. Hiring documents

Once you’ve decided to hire someone new, it’s time to make it official—starting with the following hiring documents.

• Job offer letter: An official offer of employment
• Employment contract: A written agreement that details a new person’s roles and responsibilities

Pro tip: Use automated workflows to get both you and new joiners the documentation you need, like TourRadar. When a prospective team member accepts an offer, their automated workflow sends an email to request all relevant documents.

2. Preboarding documents

An effective preboarding process makes onboarding more efficient and gives new people time to get acclimated to their upcoming role. Some important preboarding documents to send them include:

• I-9 form: An employment eligibility form to work in the US
• W-4 form: A tax document required in the US for all new hires
• Local tax forms: Tax forms required by the state a new person resides in
• Direct deposit forms: A form to collect preferred bank account details for processing payments
• Employee information form: A document to gather relevant personal data for your company’s records
• Preboarding questionnaire: A survey to gather insights in order to continuously improve your company’s onboarding process

Pro tip: Try AlgoSec’s approach and build a personalized preboarding experience to improve team member experience and ensure all touchpoints are covered.

3. Onboarding documents

After preboarding is over, it’s helpful to have your onboarding documents prepared for your new team member’s first day. The sooner their paperwork is submitted, the faster they can settle in and get started. Here is important onboarding paperwork to have at the ready.

• Employee handbook: A manual to help new people get to know your company and what it stands for
• Organizational chart or employee directory: An overview of your company’s internal structure, how departments are connected, and contact information for the entire team
• Benefits enrollment: A set of documents to sign up new people for the benefits offered by your company
• Code of conduct: A document that lays out acceptable and unacceptable behaviors on the job
• 30-60-90 onboarding plan: A structured plan to track your new team member’s progress over the first 30, 60, and 90 days
• Attendance policy: A document that outlines attendance-related expectations, policies, and procedures

Pro tip: Encourage team member engagement by making the onboarding process more engaging. Take Novatti, for example: Their lighthearted and fun onboarding workflows help new starters feel welcomed to the team.

4. Other onboarding documents

Depending on your company and the specific role you’re hiring for, these additional onboarding documents may be a necessary addition to your collection.

• Anti-harassment policy: A document aimed at preventing offensive behavior and treatment and describing specific protections available
• IT policy: A set of guidelines for using IT resources to ensure compliance with company standards
• AI policy: A set of rules for how AI is allowed—and prohibited—to be used on the job
• Non-disclosure agreements: An agreement that new people will keep specific company information confidential
• Time-off and vacation request forms: Forms to request specific types of paid time off, such as sick leave or vacations
• Health declarations: A document that highlights new people’s health status to assess if they require accommodations
• Work permits: A legal document that grants a foreign person permission to work in the country

Pro tip: Use HR software to create automated workflows that save you time and stress. Thanks to HR tech, Rebellion now sets up entire onboarding processes for new joiners in just 15 minutes.

Considerations for the employee onboarding process

A thoughtful onboarding process creates an environment where new team members can thrive right away. Read on for important considerations to make as you level up how your company onboards new people.

Timing is key

Some organizations will consider onboarding to be a task that only takes a week or less to complete, but companies that spend a month or less on these programs are 9 percent less likely to keep first-year team members at the organization. But the experts recommend that onboarding should last for at least 90 days, or even up to a year. 

With this in mind, each of these employee onboarding templates are split into four sections:

• Before start date
• First day
• First month
• First 90 days

This gives you the ability to ensure the most important points of your new recruits’ journeys are considered and accounted for—and your onboarding process doesn’t come to a close before your new team members are fully trained and properly settled in.

The world of remote working

The modern workplace can have a number of employees who work remotely or in a hybrid environment, but onboarding processes haven’t always kept up. In fact, 63 percent of remote workers feel their onboarding training was inadequate. With this in mind, these employee onboarding templates have been designed to be flexible, agile, and adaptable.

So while some of these points are only relevant to in-house workers, the rest can easily be adapted to include remote workers. For example, one-on-one meetings or introductions can be held via online video-conferencing, or employee training sessions (live on Zoom or pre-recorded) can be done virtually. Perhaps the manager can take a tour of the office with the laptop while the candidate is on Zoom to get a personal virtual tour.

It’s also important that you treat your remote workers with the same level of detail and care as you do for your employees who work from your office. For example, you wouldn’t leave a new employee sitting in the waiting room with just a note that says: “Welcome.” Just like you wouldn’t show them to an empty desk with no computer or tools.

So make sure that you properly greet your new remote employee via a video call, or at the very least with a strong onboarding email (for which the perfect onboarding email template is available). And make sure that any tools they need to properly do their job have arrived at wherever they are working from with plenty of time to spare.

It’s not all about the paperwork

Paperwork is important. There’s no denying that. You need to ensure all the t’s have been crossed and the i’s have been dotted—but onboarding is about far more than just signing some documents.

Proper onboarding involves immersing your new recruit into the culture of your organization and making sure that they fit in and feel comfortable. It’s about making sure that they know exactly what is expected of them, and how they can reach their potential within your organization. 

So by all means, place an emphasis on making sure that the legal bits are in order—but don’t make it a central theme.

Use clear onboarding templates to create a culture of learning

From the top of the company structure all the way to the bottom, every person deserves a thorough and well-thought-out process. With the help of employee onboarding plan templates, you’ll have access to a strong set of onboarding tools to guide your new recruits through the first three months of their new jobs.

But the employee experience doesn’t stop there.

All of these templates include six-month, nine-month, and one-year progress meetings—but you and their managers should regularly check in to make sure each person is happy in their role and have a full understanding of what’s expected.

Meet Bob

Today’s HR leaders need to build a company culture that engages and retains both in-house and remote employees—both during the onboarding period and for the entire duration of their time at the firm—encouraging camaraderie and commitment.

That’s why we built Bob, a modern HR platform that was designed to put people first. With Bob’s onboarding feature, you can make the best first impression with a positive and streamlined experience.

Onboarding with Bob

Provide a positive and streamlined experience for your new hires that sets the stage for employee engagement, better employee retention, and increased productivity. 

• Automate onboarding workflows to ensure every task and touchpoint is covered 
• Preboard new hires to start their journey before day one
• Showcase the people and company culture for a great head start
• Make it official with company-wide announcements
• Personalize the onboarding to meet the needs of the role, team, and country