An employee onboarding checklist template for every role you hire

In most small businesses the onboarding checklist lives in the owner’s head, and it comes out slightly different every time. The new nurse gets her tunics on day three and nobody sets up her email until someone notices on Thursday. An employee onboarding checklist template fixes that, as long as it sits somewhere people open every day.

In Klusko, make one task called something like “Onboarding: dental nurse” and add each step as a subtask: the GDC registration check, the right-to-work check, uniform, rota, logins and the decontamination walkthrough. Then save it as a task template. Next time you hire a nurse, create a task from the template, put the start date in, and the list is already there.

A receptionist’s first week isn’t a nurse’s. Reception needs the phone system, the booking software and what to do about a patient who turns up 20 minutes late for a 15-minute appointment. A nurse needs the surgery routine and infection control. So keep a template per role, small and specific. Five good ones beat one enormous list that half applies to everybody.

Some steps belong to other people: the practice manager does the ID check and the owner sorts payroll. Give those their own tasks in the new starter’s project, each with its own assignee, because a Klusko task has one owner and every step should have a name on it. Task templates are on the Team plan; see pricing.

Give every first-week task a due date, then open the Calendar view. You’ll probably see Monday stacked with paperwork and Thursday empty, and you can spread things out before the new starter feels dropped in at the deep end. Nobody enjoys a Monday of forms. Shadowing sessions and the decon room walkthrough go in as tasks with dates like everything else.

Once they’ve joined your account as a Member, the new starter can open the onboarding project and see the whole week. Handing someone a plan on day one does more for first-day nerves than a welcome pack and a branded mug.

New people ask fewer questions than they have. Pick a buddy who isn’t their manager, and have them send a direct message before day one about where to park and whether to bring lunch. A question in a DM feels smaller than the same question in #practice-team, which is the point.

When a question turns into a job (“my login for the X-ray software doesn’t work”), the buddy adds a task for whoever sorts logins and mentions it in the DM, where it shows up as a live link. The new starter can see it’s in hand without asking twice. More on how the two sides fit together on the chat page.

A task template holds your list, but you still have to write it the first time. We’ve put a longer version together in our employee onboarding checklist for small businesses, covering what to sort before day one and what to check at the end of the first month. Copy the parts that apply to your trade into your template and bin the rest.

If you’re hiring every few months, the growing teams page is worth a look, and there’s more on keeping a small team organised on the small businesses page.