Onboarding Plan Template for New Employees

Which onboarding document does what

Four documents get called an onboarding plan, and they do different jobs. This post covers the second one.

If you're working out the full set, start with our guide to employee onboarding templates.

The onboarding plan template

Copy these five parts into a document of your own. Keep one copy for each new employee.

Part 1: The basics

Part 2: What this role is for

Write one sentence on why the role exists. Then choose about three outcomes for the end of the first month.

Part 3: The first four weeks

The focus column is a sensible default, so change it to suit the role.

Part 4: The jobs they'll take over

Hand each job over in three stages, and put a date against each. They watch you do it, you do it together, and then they do it alone with you checking afterwards.

Part 5: Check-ins

Book these before they start. A check-in that isn't in the diary tends to get moved, then missed.

A filled-in example

This is a typical example we've made up: a customer support adviser joining a small online homeware shop.

What the role is for: answer customers quickly and correctly, so the owner stops handling the support inbox.

Notice how small week one is. They aren't expected to deliver much yet, and that's deliberate.

Would you know if this goal was met?

Part 2 only works if you could tell, on day 30, whether each outcome happened. Try these.

How to fill it in

Start with Part 2. Everything else exists to get them to those outcomes, so write them first and work backwards.

Ask whoever does the work now. They'll know which parts are harder than they look. Ask them what they wish they'd been shown earlier.

Choose one job they can finish in week one. A small, complete piece of work tells you both that the access, the instructions and the support are in place.

Write up each job before its "watch" date. You don't want to be writing the instructions while someone waits. At Tamberly Studio, the small design studio we made up for our free pack, Priya writes a one-page Task Card for the monthly invoices and then hands the job to Grace in those same three stages. Grace watches one month, they do it together the next, and she does it alone in the third. A clear SOP does the same job for anything more involved.

Leave room. We'd fill about two-thirds of each week. Questions, interruptions and things that take longer than you hoped will use up the rest.

Changing the plan for different starters

Where onboarding plans go wrong

Planning every hour. A timetable breaks the first time someone's off. Weekly focus is enough detail.

A reading-heavy first week. Documents make more sense once you've seen the work. Mix them with shadowing.

Keeping it to yourself. The plan is for both of you. If the new employee has never seen it, they can't tell you when it's stopped matching reality.

Letting check-ins slip. These are often the first thing to go in a busy week, and the first sign something's wrong tends to show up in them.

What this plan can't cover

Contracts, checks that someone can work for you, tax details and probation all depend on where you are, and the rules differ by country. Keep those steps on your checklist, use official guidance for your location and speak to a qualified adviser if you're unsure. Nothing here is legal advice.

Once the first month is done, carry the same outcomes into a 30-60-90 day plan and make one change to your master copy based on what the new employee told you on day 30.

If you'd like help with the groundwork, The Business Operating Manual by SystemaFlow™ is our free pack. It doesn't include an onboarding system, and we won't pretend otherwise. What it does give you is the Task Card for writing up the jobs in Part 4 and a Who Owns What page that shows a new employee who to ask. Our systems are done-for-you templates in Word and PDF that you keep and adapt. They aren't software.