Employee onboarding: a 90-day plan
A new hire forms a view of your team in the first weeks. Most of what helps is simple: be ready for them, give them early wins, and check in often. Here is a plan you can use today.
Updated
Before the first day
- Set up their accounts, access and equipment.
- Name a buddy they can ask anything.
- Tell the team who is joining and what they will do.
- Plan the first week, hour by hour.
The first week
- Meet them on arrival and walk them through the week.
- Have them meet each person they will work with.
- Give them one small task they can finish.
- Explain how the team works: where decisions are made and how to ask for help.
The first 90 days
Give them a little more each week. Agree two or three goals in the first month, and look at them together at the end of it.
- Hold a 1:1 every week.
- Ask what has been confusing, and fix what you can.
- Ask for their fresh view of how things are done.
- Thank them for the first real piece of work.
Signs it is going wrong
- They stop asking questions.
- They wait a long time for reviews or answers.
- They only talk to you, or only to their buddy.
- Your 1:1s get skipped or pushed back.
The signals behind this guide
- Checking in with a new hire in the first 90 days
Someone is in their first 90 days.
- How to tell if someone on your team is blocked
Someone is stuck waiting on a teammate.
- Are you giving one person less of your time?
One person gets much less of your time than the others.
More guides
- Why employees leave and the signs before they go
Why employees leave, the changes a manager can see before someone resigns, and how to start the conversation while there is still time.
- Quiet quitting: the signs, and what to do
What quiet quitting looks like on a team, how it differs from a quiet week, and how a manager can respond without blame.
- One on one questions to ask your team
One on one questions for every part of a 1:1 meeting: workload, the team, growth and you as their manager. Plus what to talk about, and a simple agenda.
- Employee recognition: how to thank good work
Employee recognition that costs nothing: how to notice the work that deserves thanks, how to say it so it lands, and ideas to make sure nobody is missed.
- Signs of burnout at work a manager can see
The signs of burnout at work a manager can see early are about the work: late nights, no breaks, no say. What to look for, what to say, what to change.
- Signs an employee is secretly struggling
The work changes that show someone may be struggling, why they hide it, and how a manager can ask in a way that gets an honest answer.
- How to tell if an employee is disengaged
What disengaged looks like day to day, how it differs from a bad week, and how a manager can find the reason and respond without blame.
- Bus factor: how to find it and raise it
Your bus factor is how many people could leave before work stops. How to find the one person your team relies on, and how to spread what they know.
- How to support an employee returning from leave
What to do before, on and after someone's first day back from leave, so they can catch up without being rushed or left out.
- Overwhelmed at work: how a manager can help
What to do when someone has too much on: how to find out what they are carrying, what to take away, and how to check that it worked.
- Performance review examples for managers
Performance review examples you can adapt for results, teamwork, growth and problems, a short template, and how to write a fair review from facts.
- Employee retention: how to keep your best people
What employee retention depends on, why good people leave, and the habits that keep them: fair workload, real growth and a manager who notices.
- Team health check: how to run one
How to run a team health check in half an hour: what to ask, how to get honest answers, what to do with the result, and what to watch between checks.
- First time manager: what to do first
A plan for a first time manager: meet each person, learn how the team works, start one on ones, and avoid the mistakes most new managers make.
Ready when you are
A quieter morning, starting in your inbox.
Connect the tools your team already uses. Sonarwork reads the past of the ones that keep one, so there is something to look at on day one. Then every weekday morning, the brief lands.
No card · Invite only right now