Onboarding Checklist
This is the standard, not the event. You write the tasks a joiner has to go through once, say which role owns each one and how many days after joining it is due, and every new joiner's own list is built from it. One checklist per kind of joiner, because a plant engineer and a sales trainee do not share a first week.
What it is for
Every company has an onboarding routine and almost none of them have it written down. This screen is where it gets written down, once, so that the twentieth joiner gets the same treatment as the first.
Two decisions make a checklist last. The first is that due dates are held as a number of days after joining, not as real dates, so the same template works for a January joiner and a July joiner. The second is that the owner of a task is a role and not a person, so the template does not rot when the IT officer resigns. HR owns the documents, IT owns the accounts, Admin owns the keys, the Line Manager owns the introductions.
A checklist says who it applies to. A company with one routine for everybody needs one checklist marked for all employees. A company where the factory induction is two days of safety training and the office induction is an afternoon needs two, each pointed at the right department, position or grade.
Nothing on this screen has anything to do with a real joiner. The moment it touches a real person is when somebody picks it on Employee Onboarding, and from then on that joiner's copy is independent of this one.
Every field, in plain words
Header
| Field | What it means | What to put in it | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Checklist | The code of the template | OBC-WORKER | Required |
| Checklist Name | What HR will recognise it by | Factory Worker Joining | Required |
| Is Default | Use this one when nothing more specific fits | Ticked on the all employees checklist | |
| Is Active | The template is in use | Ticked | Untick an old routine instead of deleting it, so past onboardings still make sense |
| Applies To | Who this routine is for | DEPT | Required. ALL All Employees, DEPT Department, POS Position, GRADE Grade |
| Department | Which department, when Applies To is Department | DEPT-SPIN Spinning | Pick it from Department. Required when you chose Department |
| Position | Which position, when Applies To is Position | POS-SPN-OPR Spinning Operator | Pick it from Position. Required when you chose Position |
| Grade | Which grade, when Applies To is Grade | G-04 | Pick it from the list |
| Remarks | Includes the two day safety induction required for the spinning hall |
Tasks
| Field | What it means | What to put in it | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Line | Line number | Fills itself | |
| Task | What has to be done, written as an instruction | Collect CNIC copy and two photographs | Required. The same task cannot be listed twice |
| Task Category | What kind of task it is | DOC | Required. DOC Documentation, IT IT and Access, WORKPLACE Workplace Setup, PAY Payroll and Benefits, TRAIN Orientation, INTRO Introductions, COMPLY Compliance, OTHR Other |
| Responsible | The role that owns it | HR | Required. HR, IT, FIN Finance, ADMIN Admin, MGR Line Manager, SEC Security, EMP Employee |
| Due (Days from Joining) | How many days after the joining date it is due | 0 for day one, 3 for the end of the first week | It cannot be negative. Zero means the joining date itself |
| Is Mandatory | The task cannot be skipped | Ticked on the safety induction | |
| Remarks | Originals seen and returned |
How to configure it
- Sit with HR and write out what actually happens in a joiner's first week. Aim for between ten and twenty tasks. A checklist nobody completes is worse than none.
- Create the first checklist, usually the all employees one. Enter the code and the name, set Applies To to All Employees, and tick Is Default.
- Add the tasks in the order they happen. For each one write the instruction, pick the category, pick the owning role, and set the days after joining.
- Use zero for anything that must happen on day one: the identity documents, the safety briefing, the gate pass, the introduction to the line supervisor.
- Tick Is Mandatory on the tasks that are legally or contractually required, for example the safety induction and the signed contract.
- Save. Then, if the client needs a different routine for a department, a position or a grade, create a second checklist pointed at it, and keep the all employees one as the default.
- Pick the checklist on Employee Onboarding for each joiner.
Scenarios
The factory needs a two day safety induction and the office does not
Two checklists. One with Applies To set to Department and the spinning department named, carrying the safety induction tasks with offsets of zero and one. One with Applies To set to All Employees, ticked as default, carrying the shorter office routine. Every joiner gets whichever one HR picks on his onboarding document.
Our IT officer left and his tasks are stuck
They are not stuck. The template names a role, not a person. Whoever holds the IT role completes those lines on a joiner's document and names himself in Completed By there. Nothing on this screen has to be reassigned.
We want the bank form back by the end of the first week
Give that task a due offset of five, counted from the joining date. For a man joining on a Monday that is the Saturday, so count in the client's working week when you choose the number.
HR wants to add a task for everybody joining from now on
Add it here. Joiners onboarded from today will get it. Joiners already onboarded will not, because their lists were copied when their documents were created. If an existing joiner genuinely needs it, add the line to his own onboarding document.
What it is connected to
- Employee Onboarding is where the template is used. Picking a checklist there copies these tasks onto that joiner's document with real due dates.
- Department, Position and Position Grade are what a checklist can be pointed at.
- Several tasks will end in another screen: documents on Employee Identification, a locker on the Facilities tab of Employee Basic Information, an induction session in Training Schedule.
If something looks wrong
- "It says a checklist needs at least one task" - a template with no tasks cannot be saved, because it would generate an empty list.
- "It says the task is listed more than once" - the same task text appears on two lines. Combine them or word them differently.
- "It says to name the department this checklist applies to" - Applies To is set to Department but no department has been picked. The same applies to Position.
- "I put minus two for a task we do before he joins" - negative offsets are refused. Keep pre joining work in Recruitment, see Offer.
- "A new joiner did not get the new task" - his list was copied when his onboarding document was created. Changes here only reach joiners onboarded afterwards.