New Employee Induction Checklist

Often when you bring a new employee on-board in your company you have already spent quite a few hours first struggling with an increased workload, meetings with colleagues deciding what the best solution to the workload is, writing job descriptions, finding agencies or appropriate places to advertise the job, interviewing, selecting and negotiating. So when the employee turns up on day one it is important to have thought through what you will do to help them get a quick start and make them feel at home. It is also important to remember that the induction process takes more than the first couple of days. It takes time for the person to feel at home and things need to go right over a longer period for them to settle in and feel comfortable. But at least if you get the first day or two right you are heading in a good direction.

Little things can matter in the first few days of employment. They are sometimes more important than the big stuff. In my first job there was no formal induction process and amongst other things nobody bothered to tell me the exact working hours. It was therefore several months before I finally found out that whereas I had arrived at 9am every morning the correct start time was 8.45. Yes I felt bad – but it certainly wasn’t my fault!

So for the first morning I have a general employee induction checklist of topics to cover. These were largely unconnected to their role but important information for the employee to understand how to behave in their new environment. It covers the following topics:

Company background

Company history
Vision and purpose
Current high level aims
Who are the directors and other key people

Facilities

Car parking
Kitchen facilities
Stationery
Security - locking up
Smoking/Alcohol/drugs policies
Health and safety - First Aid/ Accident procedures
Web access policy
Email & phone use policy
Day start and end times
Lunch hours
How to answer the phone
Holiday rules and Holiday booking
Dress code

Job Role Information

Job title
Areas of responsibility
Contribution of the role to the business
Priorities
Performance reviews

HR Documentation

Signed contract
P45
Completed information sheet for HR
Pension
Pay – when in month
Expenses
Salary reviews

If you cover off all these subjects on the first day then at least the employee knows the basics of how to behave around the company which will help hugely in making them feel comfortable and avoid awkward situations with others.