---
name: employee-onboarding
description: Use when asked to plan employee onboarding — pre-start logistics through the first 90 days for a new hire — picking up after a signed offer letter, as distinct from the offer letter itself, which commits to terms rather than planning what happens once the person actually starts.
---

# Employee Onboarding

Employee onboarding is the plan for a new hire's first days and weeks
on the job, starting from where the signed [[offer-letter]] leaves off.
Its job is to get someone from "accepted the offer" to genuinely
productive and likely to stay — not just to fill their first day with
paperwork and introductions.

## Key phases

- **Pre-start logistics** — everything done before day one: paperwork,
  equipment and account provisioning ordered, a welcome message with
  practical first-day details (where to go, what time, who to ask for).
- **First day** — orientation, a workspace and system access that
  already work, introductions to the immediate team, and a first
  check-in with the manager.
- **First week** — role-specific training, meeting people outside the
  immediate team the role will work with, and small early tasks that
  build real (if low-stakes) momentum.
- **First 90 days** — a ramp plan with milestones at 30, 60, and 90
  days, culminating in the person owning a real piece of the role
  described in their [[job-description]].

## Key components

- **Equipment and access provisioning** — laptop, accounts, badge, and
  tools ready *before* day one, not requested on it; a new hire waiting
  on IT for their first several days sets the tone for the whole ramp.
- **Role expectations tied back to the job description** — the ramp
  plan should translate the job description's actual responsibilities
  into concrete, dated goals, so both the new hire and manager can tell
  whether the person is on track against what the role was hired to do.
- **An assigned buddy, separate from the manager** — someone the new
  hire can ask informal or "dumb" questions without it going through
  their reporting line, plus scheduled manager check-ins on a known
  cadence rather than ad hoc.
- **Defined 30/60/90-day milestones** — set out ahead of time, not
  improvised as the weeks pass, so progress can actually be assessed
  against something concrete.

## Common pitfalls

- **Onboarding treated as ending after day one** — a strong first-day
  orientation with nothing structured for the following weeks leaves
  the new hire to figure out the actual job on their own.
- **No clear 30/60/90-day milestones** — without them, neither the new
  hire nor their manager has a concrete way to tell whether ramp-up is
  actually on track or quietly falling behind.
- **Equipment or access not ready on day one** — a new hire sitting
  idle waiting for a laptop, a badge, or system access wastes the most
  motivated period of their tenure and signals disorganization early.
- **Role in practice doesn't match the job description** — a gap
  between what was described and offered and what the person is
  actually asked to do, left unaddressed instead of raised and
  resolved in the first weeks.
- **No assigned buddy, only the manager** — leaves informal, everyday
  questions ("where do I find X," "is it normal that Y") with nowhere
  low-stakes to go.

## Learn more

- [[offer-letter]] for the document onboarding picks up after.
- [[job-description]] for the role definition onboarding should ramp the new hire toward.
- [[performance-review-meeting]] for how the ramp plan's milestones feed into ongoing evaluation.