Employee Retention

New Hire Checklist: Tips for Onboarding New Employees

Use this New Employee Checklist to get better results when onboarding new employees. Get nearly 40 easy-to-follow steps for building or improving your process.


Are you doing everything (reasonably) possible to ensure the new hires you’ve spent time and money finding are going to stick around and become productive? Do you have a structured process for onboarding new employees, or do you kind of wing it?

I want to share a new hire checklist with you that will help you make sure your investment in those new hires pays off.

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In a 2007 presentation to SHRM, the Wynhurst Group, cited research that showed employees who went through a structured onboarding program were 58% more likely to be with the company after three years.

If you don’t have a program, or aren’t happy with the one you have, you’re not alone. According to the Allied Workforce Mobility Survey, 22% of companies have no formal program for onboarding new employees and 49% say the program they do have is only “somewhat successful.”

In our own 2016 McQuaig Global Talent Recruitment Survey, onboarding was the number one planned investment for companies looking to address talent shortages.

The New Hire Checklist

If you’re one of those companies looking to invest here, our New Hire Checklist is a good place to start. Get your copy of the New Hire Checklist here.

Whether you’re looking to put together a new program or improve an existing one, our New Hire Checklist provides useful tips to use at each phase of the onboarding process.

Wait, there are phases? Yes there are.

Phases of an Onboarding Program

An effective program for onboarding new employees should last eight to 12 months targeting four distinct phases:

  • Pre-hire
  • Day One
  • Day Two – Three Months
  • Three Months – One Year

The needs of the employee are different at each phase and the activities vary accordingly. For more details on the four phases you can download our ebook, The Ultimate Guide to Employee Onboarding.

Executive Onboarding

When it comes to executive onboarding, many of the same best practices apply, but there are a few other things you should be doing with these folks.

We’ve included a special checklist just for onboarding new executives to help you ensure these valuable new hires are around to help your organization grow for years to come.

Get your copy of the checklist here.

Image courtesy of Flickr CC and IvanWalsh.com


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