Workbook

Manager Essentials:
Onboarding
Best Practices
The importance of the first few days and weeks on the job can’t be
overstated. A new team member’s first impressions set the tone for
the rest of their tenure. As a manager, you’re directly responsible for
welcoming your new hires and setting them up for success.
The cost of flubbing onboarding is real — employees who have a negative
onboarding experience are twice as likely to look for other career
opportunities in the future. But on the flip side, a positive onboarding
experience can have major benefits like increasing new hire retention by
82% and productivity by over 70%.
If you’ve never created a system for onboarding new employees before,
it might seem a little daunting. But it doesn’t have to be. All it takes is a
little practice. This worksheet will help you take a more intentional and
systematic approach to onboarding.
A 5-step approach to new
hire onboarding
One of the biggest myths about onboarding is that it’s only about
paperwork. In reality, onboarding involves creating an environment where
new hires feel welcome, accepted, and ready to do their best work. This is
much harder to accomplish than emailing a couple of forms, but the results
are so much more impactful. Build an action plan to strengthen your new
hire onboarding by completing the prompts in this worksheet.

1.
Draft a welcome letter
There’s a reason why IKEA furniture is notoriously difficult to build — people don’t tend to
do well with ambiguity, especially when it comes to instructions. As a manager, one of the
simplest and most effective things you can do is to write a welcome letter to your new hire
to outline your expectations and share any other essential information.

What are the most important things a new team member should know when joining
your team? Make a list of things like mandatory meetings, core working hours, and
preferred communication channels. (Note that this work will be well worth it, as you
can recycle this portion for any new hires who join your team in the future.)

Now, think about one role in particular and make a list of the essential information
you’d like to share with this person. This might include things like what you expect
your new hire to have accomplished in their first 30 days, what tools and technology
everyone on your team uses, and where they can go for additional information.

Manager Essentials: Onboarding Best Practices 2

2.
Create a “fresh eyes” document
New hires can sometimes feel frustrated because they don’t know how
things work, which leads them to have many questions. But as a manager,
you can help them tap into this fresh perspective and use it to help
your team improve. Encourage your new hires to uncover problems or
inefficiencies in the way your team is currently working. You can do this with
a “fresh eyes” document where your new hire can add questions, share
feedback, or simply point out anything that doesn’t make sense to them.

Create a template for your “fresh eyes” document. Explain that you value your
new hire’s perspective and encourage them to add feedback and questions as
they come up.

How often will you review this document with new hires? What will you do with
the feedback they share? Create an action plan to hold yourself accountable.

Manager Essentials: Onboarding Best Practices 3

3.
Take team building seriously
Setting your new hire up for success isn’t just about helping them knock
tasks off their to-do list. It’s also about creating an environment where
they feel welcome and safe. This is why it’s critical to incorporate team-
building into your onboarding process. This can involve both actions that
you’ll take as a manager and actions that the rest of your team will take.

What are some specific actions you can take to make your new hire feel
welcome? This might include creating a list of people for your new hire to meet
and sending email introductions to each of these people.

What are some specific team-building actions that you’d like the rest of the
people on your team to take and who can be responsible for each one? Make
a list of tasks like organizing a virtual team lunch or playing a quick icebreaker
game during your next team meeting.

Manager Essentials: Onboarding Best Practices 4

4.
Organize an onboarding buddy
Let’s face it — no matter how much you encourage new hires to come
to you with questions, they might struggle to find the time and space to
do this. Managers often spend large portions of their days in meetings
and can’t always respond promptly. This is why it’s so beneficial to create
a buddy system where you partner a new hire with a more tenured
employee. In fact, Microsoft found that the more a new hire met with
their buddy during the first 90 days, the more likely they were to say
the buddy helped them quickly become productive in their role. You can
make it as easy as possible by creating templates and a structure for
your buddy program.

What information should someone know before becoming a buddy for a new
hire? Make a list of the main ideas and expectations that the buddy can align
with before accepting.

Outline the main touch points when buddies should check in with the new hire
(e.g. before lunch on their first day, sometime during their first week, etc.) and
areas where they might offer to be of particular help.

Manager Essentials: Onboarding Best Practices 5

5.
Write your “working with me” guide
Everyone has different work styles and preferences. And research shows that the top reasons
for failure in a new role are a poor grasp of how the organization works and a poor fit with
organizational culture. You can write a “working with me” guide to offer new hires a crash
course in your work and communication style. This is another document that will take some
initial work but can easily be recycled in the future.

Make a list of the essential points your new hires should know about working
with you (e.g., the best way to get in touch, when you tend to be available, your
communication style, etc).

What are some other points that will help your team members make the most
of their working relationship with you? Which topics are you most excited to
discuss with them? What are your expectations for them?

Manager Essentials: Onboarding Best Practices 6

Onboarding is a make it
or break it moment in the
employee experience
The best onboarding is thoughtful and intentional. In fact,
employees who experience a structured onboarding program
are 58% more likely to be with a company after three years. The
opposite is true, too. Among employees who left a job within the
first six months, four out of ten said a more effective onboarding
process could have helped them stay longer.
Need a little extra support in helping managers at your company
onboard new employees effectively? Learn more about leadership
training opportunities with a demo of Udemy Business.

Manager Essentials: Onboarding Best Practices 7

About Udemy Business
Udemy’s mission is to provide flexible, effective skill development to
empower organizations and individuals.
Udemy Business enables employers to offer on-demand learning for
everyone, immersive learning for tech teams, and cohort learning for
leaders. With our integrated learning solutions and strategic partnership,
we equip companies with the tools to build a future-ready workforce,
increase employee engagement, and achieve critical business outcomes.
Learn more at business.udemy.com