University of Kwazulu-Natal

Free New Hire Checklist Template

Bonisiwe Shabane
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free new hire checklist template

By Becky Simon | January 4, 2017 (updated April 28, 2025) We’ve gathered the most useful employee onboarding checklists and templates in Excel, Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Adobe PDF, and Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets formats. Included in this article, you’ll find the following: Download a Sample New Hire Onboarding Checklist Template for Excel | Microsoft Word | Google SheetsDownload a Blank New Hire Onboarding Checklist Template for Excel | Microsoft Word | Google Sheets When to Use This Template: Use this checklist template to help standardize the onboarding process and reduce errors. You can use this template across departments to align HR and hiring managers, as well as improve the new hire experience.

A new hire checklist is a document that enlists all the activities to be completed by a hiring manager or HR professional while onboarding a new employee. It serves as a guide for them. It also ensures that none of the important steps to be taken during the recruit’s transition process are missed. Because of the importance of including all these important steps in a time-efficient manner, some professionals directly use a new hire checklist template. This template is for you to check as you complete tasks. It is typically based on four stages.

We have described these later on in this article. A successful onboarding process results in better productivity, efficiency, and employee satisfaction. There are some major benefits to effectively using a checklist in human resource management. When you use a properly crafted checklist during the onboarding process of a new employee, it proves to be very beneficial. This checklist ensures that you document the tasks to be completed in a structured manner for maximum effectiveness. It also ensures that we take the steps promptly so that the new employee can transition into their role smoothly.

You can ensure that their onboarding process is a success by using one. Access to 15 certificate programs, courses and all future releases AIHR Boot Camps are intensive HR training programs designed to rapidly upskill small cohorts, blending self-paced, specialized content with instructor-led, practical sessions, all guided by a program manager to ensure progress and impact. A new hire checklist is like a roadmap for onboarding—guiding you step-by-step to ensure no turn is missed on the journey to employee success. Recruitment is just the first step in attracting and retaining top talent. A new hire checklist that ensures a successful onboarding process is essential if you want to achieve greater hire retention and boost the productivity of new hires.

As an HR professional, your role is to create an exceptional new hire onboarding process that meets your organization’s talent objectives. This guide will provide you with a 5-step process for creating effective new hire checklists and several new hire checklist templates, from a general onboarding checklist to a new employee training checklist. Manage team tasks inside Microsoft Teams. Track and analyze key performance metrics. Integrate Teamflect with over 200+ HRIS platforms. Automate and elevate performance with AI.

Streamline and digitize performance management. Discover a comprehensive employee onboarding checklist to ensure you’re fully prepared to welcome and support your newest team members. Download our templates in Excel and PDF formats. Employee onboarding is a big task, and with so many moving parts, it’s easy for important steps to slip through the cracks. From paperwork and IT setup to training and culture-building, each stage shapes how a new hire experiences your organization. Despite its importance, many organizations are still missing the mark.

Research by Gallup found that only 12% of employees strongly agree their organization does a great job onboarding new employees. A poor onboarding experience can leave new hires feeling unsupported, disengaged, and at risk of leaving before they have had the chance to succeed. To help you avoid these pitfalls, we have created a practical onboarding checklist you can use to stay organized. A well-structured checklist ensures consistency, compliance, and a positive first impression that sets employees up for long-term success. Human resources are a key asset for any company. Once your HR department has shortlisted the most suitable candidates for a job, it is usually the senior management who calls the final shots and decides who, out of a pool of candidates, is...

But taking a new employee on board is as challenging as exciting. From running background checks and ensuring all legal and regulatory requirements are met, to familiarizing them with their new workplace, team, and role – all this takes a great deal of hard work &... Lucky for you, we help you elevate and expedite your HR game by providing free-of-cost, print-ready, and customizable New Hiring templates to help you engage with employees throughout their journey with your organization. In this post, we provide an overview of four different templates that HR professionals can use at three different times of hiring: Now, let’s explore each of our templates in more detail: Welcoming a new employee to your organization isn’t just about a warm greeting—it’s about setting them up for success from day one.

A structured new hire checklist ensures that no essential task is missed, from completing paperwork to accessing tools and understanding company policies. To make onboarding easier and more consistent, we’ve gathered 45+ free new hire checklist templates in Word and Excel formats. These templates are perfect for HR departments, small businesses, team leads, and startup founders who want a smooth and professional onboarding experience. A new hire checklist is a document used to track all necessary steps involved in welcoming and integrating a new employee. It helps ensure that all tasks are completed promptly and nothing falls through the cracks. The checklist serves as a timeline for onboarding and gives the new hire a sense of structure during their transition into the organization.

✅ Keeps onboarding consistent across departments✅ Reduces HR errors and delays✅ Ensures legal and procedural compliance✅ Boosts employee satisfaction and engagement✅ Saves time with ready-to-use, professional layouts Sign Up For Our HR for Humans Newsletter! Sign up to receive more well-researched human resources articles and topics in your inbox, personalized for you. This article is part of a larger series on Hiring. Sign up to receive more well-researched human resources articles and topics in your inbox, personalized for you. Employees who are not engaged cost companies a lot of money in lost productivity.

Given this, you simply can’t afford to treat onboarding as a checklist exercise. In fact, this is your first big opportunity to spark engagement, and setting engagement as a Day One goal ensures your new hire checklist supports retention, productivity, and long-term success.

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By Becky Simon | January 4, 2017 (updated April 28,

By Becky Simon | January 4, 2017 (updated April 28, 2025) We’ve gathered the most useful employee onboarding checklists and templates in Excel, Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Adobe PDF, and Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets formats. Included in this article, you’ll find the following: Download a Sample New Hire Onboarding Checklist Template for Excel | Microsoft Word | Google SheetsDownload a Blank New...

A New Hire Checklist Is A Document That Enlists All

A new hire checklist is a document that enlists all the activities to be completed by a hiring manager or HR professional while onboarding a new employee. It serves as a guide for them. It also ensures that none of the important steps to be taken during the recruit’s transition process are missed. Because of the importance of including all these important steps in a time-efficient manner, some pro...

We Have Described These Later On In This Article. A

We have described these later on in this article. A successful onboarding process results in better productivity, efficiency, and employee satisfaction. There are some major benefits to effectively using a checklist in human resource management. When you use a properly crafted checklist during the onboarding process of a new employee, it proves to be very beneficial. This checklist ensures that yo...

You Can Ensure That Their Onboarding Process Is A Success

You can ensure that their onboarding process is a success by using one. Access to 15 certificate programs, courses and all future releases AIHR Boot Camps are intensive HR training programs designed to rapidly upskill small cohorts, blending self-paced, specialized content with instructor-led, practical sessions, all guided by a program manager to ensure progress and impact. A new hire checklist i...

As An HR Professional, Your Role Is To Create An

As an HR professional, your role is to create an exceptional new hire onboarding process that meets your organization’s talent objectives. This guide will provide you with a 5-step process for creating effective new hire checklists and several new hire checklist templates, from a general onboarding checklist to a new employee training checklist. Manage team tasks inside Microsoft Teams. Track and ...