Create an Onboarding Plan

Congratulations on your new hire! But there’s more work ahead. It’s not simply enough to hire diverse candidates, but we need to ensure that they succeed and thrive within their organizations. The following sections include questions and recommendations for the development of your onboarding process.

Compile all the information a new hire will need for onboarding before they start. UW HR’s onboarding toolkit is one example.
Include human resources staff, managers, and other employees in the creation of the onboarding plan. How can you involve more than just the supervisor in the onboarding process?
Develop a detailed schedule for a new employee’s first 30 days.
Consider unique challenges to onboarding for Neurodiverse employees. Utilize the Autism @ Work Playbook from Disability:IN for details on onboarding, training, and more.
Avoid making assumptions about what a new hire may, or may not, know about working at your organization.

Provide all onboarding information to new hires in writing (physical or digital). Starting a new job can result in information overload. Writing things down allows new hires to refer back to information as needed.
Create detailed checklists for new hires and their managers to make sure no tasks are missed.

Create an ongoing list of workplace expectations for new hires. This includes things like hours of operation, professional dress, taking work home, etc.
Try to write down the “unwritten rules” of your workplace and avoid punishing new employees for not following these norms if they aren’t aware of them.
Ensure that new hires understand organizational norms around communication.
Be explicit about how and when employee performance will be evaluated. Consider how recent college graduates can get an ‘A’ in their job.
Avoid assumptions about what new employees do, or do not, know about performance evaluation.