Using Charlie’s onboarding checklists for rigorous onboarding
Manual onboarding is costing you time and professional relationships. Discover why switching to Charlie’s checklists is the right choice.
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Your first impression has a lasting impact on your new hire. They show up excited and eager to get started, and you want to help them settle in so they can put their enthusiasm and talent into use.
The trouble is, if you rely on a manual onboarding process (like most small businesses), the reality is often different.
Your good intentions get sidetracked by delays, missed steps, and confusion. And your new hire’s excitement is replaced with disappointment.
Manual onboarding is failing you, and you need a replacement. Charlie’s onboarding checklists remove the guesswork, help you stay on track, and ensure everyone gets the same smooth new hire experience.
The main challenges of manual onboarding
Any manual process is open to error, and onboarding is one place where you don’t want this to happen. Not only could you slip up when it comes to compliance, but you risk giving your new hire an unforgettable first impression for all the wrong reasons.
When we’ve spoken to customers about their main challenges with onboarding, here’s what they’ve highlighted:
1. Missed steps create a frustrating experience
Joining a new company should be exciting, but a subpar onboarding experience can take away the shine. When you miss onboarding steps or introduce delays, your new hire ends up feeling frustrated and lost.
We’ve heard stories where new hires encountered:
- No login details
- Incorrect access to software
- No welcome meeting or email
- Lack of access to key documents
- No idea what they’re meant to be doing
All of this leads to a situation where the onboarding experience is underwhelming or even damaging. With a clear checklist, it’s much easier to complete tasks on time or spot issues before they become major roadblocks.
2. The process becomes overwhelming
With no checklist or automated onboarding process, every task must be checked, tracked, and completed manually. This introduces a huge extra workload for managers at a time where they’re likely already under pressure.
This approach requires your managers to:
- Take ownership of an onboarding spreadsheet or make their own
- Request help from other departments (like finance and IT)
- Chase other departments for updates
- Try and remember every onboarding task, so they can record it
- Prepare instructions for the new hire
It’s not hard to imagine why tasks get missed—it’s a lot to remember and manage. Ease everyone’s workload and make onboarding a more enjoyable experience by switching to a simple checklist or automated onboarding.
3. Manual onboarding is inefficient
Manually tracking onboarding tasks isn’t just overwhelming, it’s a huge waste of time. The onboarding journey requires time and attention from people right across your company—and that’s time they can’t dedicate to other goals.
Just some of the inefficiencies of this way of working include:
- Multiple spreadsheets saved in different locations
- Different versions of files and documents
- No clear home for all things onboarding
- No set roles or responsibilities
- Lack of instructions on how to complete a task
- Having to ask for progress updates
- Manually updating tables and spreadsheets
- No real ownership of onboarding or how it works
This way of managing onboarding is so time-consuming for everyone involved. Moving to an onboarding checklist or using software to automate the process will immediately give you time back.
4. The employee experience is inconsistent
Every manager is different, and having a mix of personalities can help your company thrive. But when it comes to onboarding, the goal is for everyone to have the same high-quality experience. Unfortunately that doesn’t always happen.
How good a manager is can influence what a new hire experiences, including:
- Access to logins, equipment, and software
- Completing paperwork to get paid on time
- How they’re welcomed to the team
- Access to logins, equipment, and software
- Access to an onboarding buddy or supportive coworker
- Help getting familiar with the team, company, and work
- An introduction to your company culture
- Goal setting and tracking
- Access to employee benefits and perks
- Information about supportive policies
Leaving the onboarding process up to every manager’s own interpretation is filled with problems. Give managers clear guidance and access to simple checklists so they can make sure every new team member experiences the best.
So why do growing companies end up leaving spreadsheets?
It’s clear that the route forward involves a checklist of some kind, but what does the ideal onboarding checklist look like?
We actually think a series of shorter, more focused checklists gives you the best possible onboarding experience. You can give all your attention to the right tasks at the right time, without overwhelming either your managers or your new hire.
At a minimum, we recommend a checklist for:
-
Pre-onboarding — Prepare everything in advance of the new hire’s start date
- First day — Welcome the new hire to the company
- First week — Introduce onboarding essentials
- Documents — Track any documents you need to collect and share
Let’s take a closer look at the reasons why, and what to feature on each checklist.
Pre-onboarding
There are some major things to take care of before your new hire starts, including signing contracts, ordering equipment, and setting up access. Relying on a manual list to do this is chaos—one missed step and it’s impossible for your new employee to start work as planned.
This onboarding checklist gives everyone a clear view of must-do tasks, so there’s no confusion over what you need to prepare in advance of that first day.
Task
Responsibility
Due date
Completed
Send employment contract
Sign employment contract
Set up email address, add to distribution lists and add to company calendars
Open accounts (Slack and other software)
Order laptop
Order office access and fob
Inform payroll of new hire
Email first-day agenda
Invite to company meetings
Book introduction meetings with key people in the business
Send welcome email/letter a few days before they start with instructions for first day
First day
The first week is all about giving your new hire a warm welcome, but there’s also important paperwork to take care of. Forgetting to grant software access introduces a roadblock, but what could be even more damaging is neglecting some of the “softer” tasks—like a friendly office tour, a coffee catch-up, or an introduction to your workplace culture.
With a first day checklist, you know that you (or someone else) has these tasks covered.
Task
Responsibility
Due date
Completed
Complete employee details in HR software and add bank details
Get New starter checklist and P45 and set them as PAYE with HRMC
Complete Right to Work Checks
Ensure new hire is set up with access to all relevant software
Book a welcome coffee – online if you’re doing remote onboarding
Book welcome lunch
Give an office tour and book an induction
Show how to book time off and send requests through HR system
Read employee handbook
Set a one-to-one for end of week
Set a one-to-one for end of week
First week
The first week is a critical time for onboarding. It’s when your new hire starts to settle into their role, team, and the company. There’s a lot of learning involved, so it’s essential that your new employee has access to the right systems and policies—and knows how to use them.
This first week checklist allows you to keep track of essential tasks for the new hire’s first few days with you.
Task
Responsibility
Due date
Completed
Put together and share a job specification with responsibilities
Go through job specs and see if new hire has any questions
Set a manageable number of goals around onboarding for the new hire
Organise check-ins at the end of each day
Discuss performance and goals for the next three months until the end of probation
Go through company values and culture goals
Collect feedback from other team members on the quality of their work and their soft skills
Ensure they’ve read your employee handbook and share any documentation related to processes
Assign an onboarding buddy
Show how to book time off and send requests through HR system
Give access to benefits platform and budgets
Documents
Onboarding is a process that involves plenty of paperwork, and having somewhere to record your progress is essential. With a separate onboarding documents checklist, you can make sure you’ve sent, received, and filed key paperwork—like contracts, offer letters, right to work checks, and confidentiality documents.
Keep track of paperwork to make onboarding and future compliance easier with this checklist.
Task
Responsibility
Due date
Completed
Offer letter to the new hire
Employment contract
Confidentiality agreements (if applicable)
P45 or New starter checklist
Employee details form (names, emergency contact, address, email address)
Right to Work checks
Visas (if applicable)
Intranet or Notion page with all information related to company
Pension scheme enrollment
How Charlie’s onboarding checklists help you finally solve onboarding
Manual onboarding is time-consuming, overwhelming, and open to error. Switching to Charlie’s simple onboarding checklists is the best way to save time, simplify, and take care of compliance.
1. One platform to consolidate all of your HR tasks
No more searching across several spreadsheets and files for the right information. Charlie brings all your employee data into one place, saving you time and making all your operations more transparent.
1. Nothing gets missed
With Charlie’s onboarding checklists, every step of onboarding is tracked and assigned. There’s no confusion over who is responsible for a task and what the deadline is, and everyone can see progress at a glance.
Your new hire can get started on day one with no delays, and you feel confident knowing that every pre-onboarding task has already been taken care of.
2. Automation saves you time
Instantly save your managers time by removing the need to manually chase for updates. With Charlie’s checklists, you can assign tasks to responsible individuals. The system will then automatically notify relevant people about updates.
Instead of spending hours sending emails to other departments and worrying about progress, your managers can focus on higher-value tasks.
3. Consistent processes every time
Deliver a consistent onboarding experience every single time with repeatable checklists. Customise your onboarding checklists so they contain essential steps, as well as those which are a must-have for your culture and team—and tailor them to the role. Roll these checklists out across the company to ensure that everyone follows the right process.
Welcome new hires in the same warm way every time, and take care of legal compliance in one simple step.
4. Less admin and more efficiency
Free your team members from the burden of admin with Charlie. Say goodbye to spreadsheets, documents, and endless emails, and replace them with one platform for everything onboarding.
Give your team members more time back to spend on growth and development, with a system that automates HR onboarding admin.
How GoSquared changes the way they handle onboarding with Charlie
Founders have a lot to focus on, and manual HR processes end up taking up too much time and energy. As James Gill, CEO of GoSquared, put it:
James Gill, CEO @ GoSquared
“If one thing is gonna keep me up at night, it's worrying about the team. Is that person happy? Are they being paid the right amount? Am I giving them enough direction? It's not like all a founder has to do is worry about their team — you've got the finances, the growth, the business direction to look after.”
In 2015, GoSquared signed up for Charlie, allowing James to switch to a simpler and more effective way of handling onboarding.Previously, GoSquared managed onboarding with a Trello board:
James Gill, CEO @ GoSquared
“It was taxing enough to remember to get that checklist out every time, and find out where it was, and make sure it was all up to date.”
This wasn’t working. Even though they had a checklist, there was a lot of manual admin and it became a challenge—especially when James wanted to focus on getting the new hire excited about their role.
Manual onboarding was introducing problems, instead of solving them.
James Gill, CEO @ GoSquared
“Charlie took all of that nonsense away. New team members can go through the onboarding steps themselves and I can track how much progress they made to completion. I feel everything is under control and it’s virtually impossible to forget anything.”
Manual onboarding vs. Charlie’s checklists
Charlie’s checklists help you go from confused and overwhelmed to clear and in charge.
You only need a basic ATS
Everything in one place, with reusable templates
Everyone changes the checklist based on their own opinions
A standard checklist is used for every new hire
No way to know when tasks are complete
Tasks get ticked off and you get notified
Tasks get forgotten about or not completed on time
Set a due date with automatic reminders
People forget about or neglect assigned tasks
Everyone can see who is assigned a task, so there’s no escaping responsibility
Messy and unprofessional
Organised and professional
Revamp your entire onboarding process from A to Z with Charlie
Our checklists help you simplify and organise onboarding, but they’re just a small part of what you can do with Charlie. There’s a whole world of onboarding features that can take care of everything from start to finish.
With Charlie, you can:
- Invite new hires to join the platform
- Create and personalise an onboarding flow
- Upload and store documents
- Ask new hires to update information with self-service access
- Share company information and files
- Introduce key team members and policies
- Create a consistent experience with onboarding checklists
- Get access to Charlie Marketplace for discounts on other software tools
Charlie can help you revamp the onboarding journey and make it more enjoyable for both your managers and your new hires. Create a great first impression, and continue that same feel-good and organised approach into the future with Charlie’s full range of HR features.
Book a demo and our software experts will help you explore our onboarding feature in detail, including how to use onboarding checklists. You can then try the software commitment-free for 7 days, before signing up for an affordable monthly plan when you’re ready to make the switch.
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Written by:
Jenny Tattum
Jenny is a Senior Product Manager at CharlieHR. She has years of experience with product planning and development, and user research too – she put together this guide by collecting data and information on competitors so we could improve our product and tailor it to small business owners.
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Charlie onboarding checklists FAQs
Our onboarding checklists are easy to use, but we also get a few questions about how they work and how you can use them in the best way. Here are those FAQs, along with our advice.
Yes! You can create a checklist as a company-wide document, so you can easily assign the checklist for every new employee. For more information, see our guide on creating a new checklist.
No, there’s no need to tell someone they’ve been given a task to complete. They’ll receive an email to alert them, and it’ll also be prominent on their dashboard until the task has been completed.
Absolutely! Your checklists can be reused indefinitely, so you can create one onboarding checklist and apply it to all new hires with no restrictions.
Yes! Charlie’s checklists are simple to set up. It only takes a few steps to create a template and add tasks to it. For more information, see our guide on creating a checklist template.
Charlie’s checklists are great for onboarding, but you can use them for any purpose. Some of our customers create and use checklists for starting new projects, organising events, and many more reasons.
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