A Checklist for Everything You Need to Do When You Hire a New Employee

Onboarding a new hire can be a stressful and intense process. Yes, you want to get them up-to-speed as quickly as possible, but there are also a ton of practicalities you need to take care of to get them set up.

Oh, and of course, you still need to do all of your work as well.

So how do you make sure you don’t forget anything? Well, we are here to help. Below is a checklist of all the things you should do in preparation for a new employee’s first day:

The Must-dos on the checklist

Going over the checklist, there are some things that absolutely have to get done within the first few days. They are:

• Ensure the employee signs up for and understands their benefits
• Ensure the employee knows when and how they’ll be paid
• Ensure the employee’s desk, phone, computer and email are all set up
• Ensure the employee’s been added to the company directory
• Ensure the employee knows how to use the basic tools to do their job
• Ensure the employee gets a tour of the office, knows where to park and has a security badge
• Ensure the employee has signed all the required paperwork (non-disclosure agreement, contract, etc) needed to begin working.

Those things are all critical for obvious reasons and it’s worth double-checking that list a few days into onboarding, just to make sure everything has been taken care of.

Going above and beyond

The items in the right-hand column of the list are just as important as the must-dos but for another reason. Presumably, you’re hiring this person because they truly are great, and by celebrating their first day you recognize the investment you put into them.

Additionally, the goal for onboarding should be to get the employee integrated into the team and contributing as soon as possible. This is best achieved by making them feel as comfortable and supported as possible, which starts with a great first day.

Some examples of things you should do are:

• Organize a new hire lunch for the new hire with their teammates
• Set up a meeting with one of the company’s leaders so they can really understand the organization’s mission
• Give them some first day swag (nothing beats a T-shirt) to make them feel immediately part of the team
• Have some balloons around the new hire’s desk

Figuring out who should do what

A legitimate question – who should do all these tasks, the recruiter or the hiring manager? Perhaps they can be split up, although most of them are best done by the hiring manager.

That said, the recruiter should send this checklist over to the hiring manager and ensure it’s filled out. That’s just one more step to the recruiter becoming a strategic partner, instead of just an order taker.

Want to learn more about onboarding an employee? Download our free “Onboarding in a Box” ebook, which features onboarding best practices and tools to help your new hire get up to speed as quickly as possible.

* image by White House/Sonya Hebert