What a great onboarding checklist covers (preboarding to day 90)
Onboarding runs in three phases, and the consensus across every good version is the same: preboarding (offer signed to day 1), orientation (day 1 through week 1), and training through day 90. The phase most small businesses skip is the first, and it is the one that decides whether day 1 feels organised or improvised: the welcome email, the ordered laptop, the team knowing who is arriving and why.
| Phase | When | What it must land |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Preboarding | Offer signed → day 1 | Paperwork, welcome email, equipment and logins, team told, first week drafted |
| 2. Orientation | Day 1 → week 1 | Ready workspace, buddy, tools tour, intros, one real shippable task |
| 3. Training & first 90 | Week 2 → day 90 | 30-60-90 plan, recurring 1:1s, day-30/60/90 reviews, probation call |
Onboarding checklist by phase: first day, first week, first 90 days
First day: the goal is one feeling: “they were expecting me”. Workspace ready, logins working, a buddy assigned, lunch not left to chance.
First week: the goal is one small, real, shipped piece of work. A genuine task, sized to finish by Friday and reviewed by a named person, settles a new hire faster than any volume of orientation. Close the week by asking what is confusing and what is missing; the answers are your onboarding checklist’s next revision.
First 90 days: the goal is momentum with a witness. The 30-60-90 plan sets the arc (learn, contribute, own), and the reviews at each gate only happen if they enter the calendar in week one. The single most common failure of the whole process is a strong week one followed by silence until someone remembers probation is ending.
Onboarding mistakes small businesses make
- Onboarding starts on day 1. It starts at signature. The gap between offer and start date is where new hires get buyer’s remorse, and a warm welcome email is remarkably cheap insurance.
- The firehose week. Five days of watching and reading with nothing to do. Give them something real to finish.
- The invisible checklist. It lives in the owner’s head, so every hire gets a different (and shrinking) version. Write it once; run it every time.
- No owner per item. “Someone” was ordering the laptop. Someone did not.
- The 90-day cliff. Attention through week one, then nothing until probation panic. Schedule the tail on day one and the cliff disappears.
Free onboarding checklist template (plain text, Google Docs, Notion)
Three ways to a first day that feels expected. The plain text pastes cleanly into Google Docs or Notion; the Notion duplicate makes the natural per-hire copy.
The plain-text template
All three phases, preboarding to the day-90 probation call.
ONBOARDING CHECKLIST · [New hire] · [Role] · Starts [date]
Owner: [who runs onboarding] · Buddy: [name]
PHASE 1 · PREBOARDING (offer signed → day 1)
[ ] Contract signed and filed; payroll and pension set up
[ ] Welcome email sent: start time, address/links, what to
bring, who meets them
[ ] Equipment and logins ordered: [laptop, accounts, door code]
[ ] Team told who’s joining and why you hired them
[ ] First-week calendar drafted: intros, training, first task
PHASE 2 · ORIENTATION (day 1 → week 1)
[ ] Day-1 welcome: workspace ready, buddy assigned, lunch
planned
[ ] Tools tour: the accounts they’ll live in, and the handbook
[ ] Intro meetings with each person they’ll work with
[ ] First real task assigned (small, shippable in week 1)
[ ] End-of-week check-in: what’s confusing, what’s missing
PHASE 3 · TRAINING & FIRST 90 (week 2 → day 90)
[ ] 30-60-90 plan agreed (learn → contribute → own)
[ ] Weekly 1:1s in the calendar, recurring
[ ] Day-30 review: settling in, blockers, early feedback
[ ] Day-60 review: contributing solo, what to own next
[ ] Day-90 review: fully aboard; probation call made and
communicated
The AI prompt
Prefer to use your own AI? Copy this into Claude or ChatGPT with the role and start date, and it builds the dated, owned checklist.
--- title: Onboarding Checklist Generator description: A prompt that builds a phase-by-phase onboarding checklist (preboarding, orientation, first 90 days) for a specific new hire. author: readywhen source: https://readywhen.ai/onboarding-checklist-template homepage: https://readywhen.ai license: CC BY 4.0 (free to use and share with attribution to readywhen) version: 1.0 updated: 2026-07-18 keywords: [onboarding checklist, new hire checklist, employee onboarding, first day checklist] --- # Onboarding Checklist Generator _By readywhen. Full guide + free template: https://readywhen.ai/onboarding-checklist-template_ You are building an onboarding checklist for a specific new hire, organised by the three canonical phases: preboarding, orientation, training/first-90. ## Principles - Date everything backward from day 1. "Order the laptop" without a date is how day 1 starts with an apology. - Preboarding is where onboarding is won: the welcome email, the ready workspace, and the team knowing who’s coming. - Week 1 includes a real, small, shippable task. Nothing settles a new hire like having actually done something. - The 90-day tail is scheduled at the start: weekly 1:1s recurring, day-30/60/90 reviews in the calendar, or they will not happen. - Every item names an owner. An ownerless checklist is a wish list. ## What I need from you The role and start date · office/remote setup · the tools they’ll need access to · who they’ll work with · who owns onboarding and who the buddy is. I’ll build the dated, owned checklist across all three phases. --- _Made by readywhen. readywhen prepares the checklist’s admin for you: the welcome email drafted, the intro invites prepped, the reviews scheduled, each ready for your approval. https://readywhen.ai/onboarding-checklist-template_
Let readywhen do itRecommended
The checklist knows what should happen; readywhen prepares it: welcome email drafted, intro invites prepped, the who’s-joining note written, and the 30/60/90 reviews scheduled from day one, each awaiting your approval.
readywhen prepares a new hire’s whole first phase in ~45 seconds: email drafted, intros prepped, reviews scheduled, instead of the night-before scramble the checklist was supposed to prevent.
Watch readywhen run onboarding from your calendar, Gmail and Slack
A checklist tells you the welcome email should go out; someone still has to write it, book the intros, and remember the day-60 review in week nine. readywhen does the preparing: it drafts the welcome email with the real start details, preps the first-week intro invites with the right people, writes the who’s-joining note for your team channel, and puts the recurring 1:1s and the day-30/60/90 reviews into the calendars at the start, each item arriving for your approval rather than your authorship. Every hire gets the full checklist, including the ninth one, hired during your busiest month.
Works with your existing tools
Onboarding checklist FAQs
What are the phases of employee onboarding?
Three: preboarding (offer signed to day 1: paperwork, welcome email, equipment, team told), orientation (day 1 through week 1: workspace, buddy, intros, a real first task), and training through day 90 (the 30-60-90 plan, recurring 1:1s, and reviews at each gate).
How long should onboarding take?
Ninety days to fully aboard, with the intensity front-loaded. Week one settles the basics; the following weeks build from learning to contributing to owning, which is why the reviews at day 30, 60 and 90 are scheduled at the start rather than remembered at the end.
What should a new hire do in their first week?
Alongside the intros and tools tour: one real task, small enough to ship by Friday, reviewed by a named person. A week of pure watching and reading (the firehose week) leaves a new hire less settled than a single finished piece of work.
What is the difference between an onboarding checklist and a 30-60-90 day plan?
The checklist is the employer’s operational list: the tasks that make the arrival work, from payroll to intros. The 30-60-90 plan is the new hire’s performance arc: learn, contribute, own, with goals per phase. The checklist’s third phase is where the plan lives.
Is there an onboarding checklist template for Google Docs or Notion?
Yes. Copy the plain-text template on this page into Google Docs, Word or Notion, or download it as a file; a Notion duplicate per hire works well as the running copy. All formats are free.
Can’t I just use ChatGPT or Claude to build my onboarding checklist?
Yes. Paste the role and start date with the prompt above, and you get a dated, owned checklist. readywhen is the version that prepares the items too: the welcome email drafted, the invites prepped, the reviews scheduled, so the checklist runs instead of merely existing.
More templates for growing the team
Employee handbook
The policies a new starter needs, drafted from how you already run things.
30-60-90 day plan
Learn, contribute, own: the first 90 days with the check-ins kept running.
Job description
Role-agnostic structure with the top responsibilities in bullets, from your context.
Give every hire the arrival your first one got.
Prepare onboarding free with readywhen
About the author and editorial standards
About the author. Sançar Şahin is co-founder and CMO of readywhen. readywhen catches everything you say you’ll do and helps you move it forward: drafted, chased or flagged, ready when you are. He builds readywhen in public on LinkedIn.
Editorial standards. No paid placements. The three-phase structure (preboarding, orientation, first 90) reflects common HR practice rather than a single authority; employment specifics vary by region. How this page was made: Sançar built the multi-agent research and drafting system behind it, checks its work at several phases, and approves the final page himself. To flag an error, email hello@readywhen.ai.
Last updated: 19 July 2026.