Onboarding Checklist Template for a New Team Member
A new hire’s first three months go better when the work is written down in four stages: before day one, the first week, the first 30 days and the first 90. A checklist to copy, the US paperwork employers cannot skip, and the same idea applied to a new AI assistant.
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An onboarding checklist template works when it is split into four stages, each with one owner: before day one (paperwork, accounts, equipment, a buddy), the first week (people, tools, one small real task), the first 30 days (the new hire owns a piece of work), and the first 90 days (they work without a guide, and you both review how it went). In the US, two items are not optional: Form I-9, with the employer’s part done within three business days of the start date, and Form W-4 for federal tax withholding. The copyable checklist, those rules in plain words, and how to onboard a new AI assistant the same way are below.
The four stages, and what each is for
- Before day one: everything that can be ready before the person arrives, should be. Accounts, equipment, a desk or a video link, a named buddy, and the paperwork started. A new hire who spends day one waiting for a password learns that nobody expected them.
- The first week: people and tools, in that order. Who they will work with, who to ask, where the work lives, and one small, real task they can finish by Friday. Finishing something in week one matters more than any presentation.
- The first 30 days: the new hire owns a piece of work end to end, with a buddy to ask and a check-in each week. By the end, they should be able to explain what the team does and why, in their own words.
- The first 90 days: they work without a guide. The stage ends with a review in both directions: how they are doing, and what the onboarding got wrong, so the next person gets a better checklist.
Each stage has one owner, usually the manager for the first and last, and the buddy for the middle two. The checklist is a list of tasks, and tasks without an owner do not happen.
The paperwork US employers must do
This is a plain-words summary, not legal advice; check the current rules for your state and your situation. Two federal forms apply to almost every new employee:
- Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification. According to USCIS (opens in a new tab), all US employers must properly complete Form I-9 for every individual they hire for employment in the United States, citizens included.
- The employee completes Section 1. The USCIS instructions for Section 1 (opens in a new tab) say this must happen no later than their first day of employment, though it can be done any time after they accept the job offer.
- The employer completes Section 2, examining the employee’s identity and work authorization documents. The USCIS instructions for Section 2 (opens in a new tab) set the deadline: within 3 business days of the date of hire, meaning the first day of work for pay.
- Form W-4, Employee’s Withholding Certificate. The employee fills it in so, in the IRS’s words (opens in a new tab), “your employer can withhold the correct federal income tax from your pay.” Collect it before the first payroll run.
Your state may add its own forms and reporting rules, so put a line for them on the checklist and fill it in once for your state. The point of listing all of this in the “before day one” stage is that a missed deadline here is a compliance problem, not an awkward first week.
Accounts and access: only what the job needs
The access list is the part of onboarding most likely to be done in a hurry and never revisited. Start from the job, not from a copy of a colleague’s accounts. The idea has a name in security: least privilege (opens in a new tab), which NIST defines as granting each entity “the minimum system resources and authorizations” it needs to perform its function. For onboarding that means three habits: list every account the role needs, give the narrowest level that lets them do the job, and write down what was granted so offboarding can undo it.
An onboarding checklist template to copy
# Onboarding: [Name], [Role] Start date: [Month day, year] Manager: [name] Buddy: [name] ## Before day one (owner: [manager]) - [ ] Send the offer letter and the start details (time, place or link) - [ ] Employee completes Form I-9 Section 1 by the first day - [ ] Collect Form W-4 before the first payroll run - [ ] [State forms and reporting for your state] - [ ] Order equipment; confirm it arrives before the start date - [ ] Create accounts: [email], [chat], [the board], [role-specific tools] - [ ] Record what access was granted, and at what level - [ ] Name a buddy and tell them what the role is for - [ ] Plan the first week, including one small real task ## Week one (owner: [buddy]) - [ ] Complete Form I-9 Section 2 within 3 business days of the start - [ ] Welcome meeting: who we are, what we do, who to ask - [ ] Walk through where the work lives and how it is tracked - [ ] Read the team's rules and working notes - [ ] Finish the first small task - [ ] End-of-week check-in: what was unclear? ## First 30 days (owner: [buddy]) - [ ] Owns one piece of work end to end - [ ] Weekly check-in with the manager - [ ] Meets everyone they will work with regularly - [ ] Explains the team's goals back in their own words ## First 90 days (owner: [manager]) - [ ] Works independently on the role's normal work - [ ] 90-day review: how it is going, in both directions - [ ] Update this checklist with what the new hire says was missing
A filled example: week one for a support hire
## Week one: Jordan, Customer support (owner: Priya) - [x] Form I-9 Section 2 completed on Wednesday, October 7 - [x] Welcome meeting with the owner and the two support leads - [x] Walk through the help inbox, the refund procedure and the board - [ ] Read the rules on the board: refunds over the limit go to a person - [ ] First task: answer ten password-reset emails, with Priya reviewing - [ ] Friday check-in: which answers needed help, and why
The first task is deliberately small and real. Ten password resets teach the inbox, the tone and the tools, and they are finished by Friday. That single finished task does more for a new hire’s confidence than a week of reading.
Onboarding a new AI assistant, too
An AI assistant joining the team needs an onboarding as well, and it is shorter but less forgiving. A person asks when something is unclear; an assistant guesses. Everything a new hire learns by asking the person at the next desk, an assistant must be able to read.
Most assistants already have a place for this. Anthropic’s Claude Code memory documentation (opens in a new tab) describes CLAUDE.md files as plain text that Claude reads at the start of every session. That is the assistant’s version of week one, repeated every day: it arrives knowing nothing and reads what you wrote down.
- Access: connect it with only the permissions its work needs, the same least-privilege rule as for a person. How to do that step by step is covered in how to give an AI agent access to your project board.
- Rules: the always and never lines, such as “never issue a refund; prepare it for a person to approve.” These are the lines a new hire hears once and remembers; an assistant must read them every time.
- Context: the facts a new hire picks up in week one, such as where things live, which system is the source of truth, and the traps others have hit.
- A first task: one small, checkable piece of work, reviewed by a person before the next one. The same logic as the ten password resets.
Running the checklist on a fenbs board
On fenbs, the rules and the context above have a home that every connected AI assistant reads. The rules live on the Decisions and rules page: a rule is a decision that holds from now on, the decider is always a person, and every connected AI assistant reads the rules first, in full. The facts go in AI context, notes every assistant reads after the rules. A new assistant connected tomorrow reads the same rules and notes as the one connected last month, which is the whole point of onboarding.
The checklist itself becomes tasks with Add many. Paste one stage at a time, set the project to the new hire’s name and the category to the stage for the whole batch, and preview the tasks before they are created. The template above pastes in as it is: each bullet becomes a task, and the headings are treated as section labels, not tasks.
Be clear about what fenbs lacks. There are no due dates, so the I-9 deadline goes in the task title or note, and a person has to watch it. There is no assignee field you can set, so write the owner in the note. There are no checklists inside a task and no recurring tasks, so each item is its own task and the template is pasted again for each new hire. If the new person is joining the board too, add them with a role that fits their first weeks; roles are set per company, and changing one later is a single step.
Related
What an assistant needs before its first task: AI agent readiness checklist. Writing the procedures a new hire follows: SOP template. Handing work between people and assistants: handing work between AI agents and people. A list that becomes a board: task list template.