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Employee Onboarding Checklist Template (Markdown)

An employee onboarding checklist in plain Markdown. Every task has an owner (manager, buddy, IT, HR or the new hire), the plan runs from the week before day one to day 90, and a short knowledge check at the end shows what stuck. Copy it, download the .md file, or open it in a wiki and let an assistant answer the new hire's questions from the same pages.

Free to use, no attribution required (CC0).

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Onboarding: {{New hire name}} — {{Role}}
Start date {{YYYY-MM-DD}}
Manager {{Name}}
Buddy {{Name}}
HR contact {{Name}}
IT contact {{Name or channel}}
Team and location {{Team, office or remote, time zone}}

Delete what does not apply. Every line has an owner in brackets.

Before day one

  • Send the welcome message with start time, place or link, and who to ask for [Manager]
  • Contract signed and employee data collected [HR]
  • Laptop ordered, configured and delivered [IT]
  • Accounts created: email, chat, calendar, {{tools}} [IT]
  • Access granted to {{repositories, folders, wiki spaces}} [Manager]
  • Day-one schedule shared and calendar invites sent [Manager]
  • Buddy briefed [Manager]

Day one

  • Meet the team and the buddy [Buddy]
  • Walk through the workspace, tools and where documentation lives [Buddy]
  • Sign in to every account and fix access problems today [New hire, IT]
  • Read {{the company handbook / glossary}} [New hire]
  • Agree what the first week looks like [Manager]
  • First small, finishable task assigned [Manager]

First week

  • Meet {{key people}} (30 minutes each) [New hire]
  • Product or service overview and a demo [{{Name}}]
  • Learn how work flows: planning, reviews, releases, support [Buddy]
  • Complete required training: security, privacy, {{compliance}} [New hire, HR]
  • Complete the first task and get feedback on it [New hire, Manager]
  • Friday: 30-minute check-in. What is unclear? What is missing? [Manager]

First 30 days: learn

Goal: {{By day 30, the new hire can ...}}

  • Learn the main customer or user problems {{how}} [New hire]
  • Shadow {{meetings, calls, on-call, deployments}} [Buddy]
  • Complete {{two or three}} small tasks end to end [New hire]
  • Agree 30-60-90 goals in writing [Manager, New hire]
  • Day-30 review: what is going well, what is hard, what do you need? [Manager]

Days 31–60: contribute

Goal: {{By day 60, the new hire owns ...}}

  • Own a defined piece of work with a clear definition of done [New hire]
  • Present what they learned to the team [New hire]
  • Give feedback on onboarding so far [New hire]
  • Day-60 review: goals on track? What support is missing? [Manager]

Days 61–90: own

Goal: {{By day 90, the new hire independently ...}}

  • Work independently on {{responsibility}} [New hire]
  • Meet a stakeholder outside the team [New hire]
  • Agree goals for the next quarter [Manager, New hire]
  • Day-90 review: summary of results, feedback both ways [Manager]

Accounts and access

System Needed Requested Granted Owner
Email and calendar Yes {{date}} {{date}} IT
Chat Yes {{date}} {{date}} IT
{{Wiki / docs}} Yes {{date}} {{date}} {{Name}}
{{Repositories}} {{Yes/No}} {{date}} {{date}} {{Name}}

Knowledge check (end of week one)

Ask in a friendly way. The aim is to find gaps in the material, not to test the person.

  1. {{Who do I ask when ...?}}
  2. {{What is our main product or service, and who is it for?}}
  3. {{How does a change go from idea to release?}}
  4. {{Where do I find ...?}}

Feedback on onboarding

  • What helped most: {{...}}
  • What was missing or confusing: {{...}}
  • Changes to make to this checklist: {{...}}

Want to see it as a real wiki page? Open this template in the Folio demo, where it is a normal Markdown page.

How to use it

  1. Step 1: Make one copy per new hire. Fill in the header, assign the buddy, and trim the tasks that do not apply to the role.

  2. Step 2: Work through it by owner. Give the new hire, their manager, the buddy and IT their own lines. Tick items off in the document so everyone sees what is left.

  3. Step 3: Review at day 30, 60 and 90. Use the check-in sections for a short, honest conversation, and write what you learned about your onboarding back into the template.

What makes a good onboarding checklist

Tasks have owners, not just names. "Set up laptop" with no owner is the task that slips. Split the list by who does it, so IT's items do not land on the manager.

It starts before day one. Accounts, equipment and a welcome message the week before turn the first morning from waiting for access into meeting people.

It is paced. A new hire cannot absorb everything in week one. Put the essentials in week one, the role in the first 30 days, and ownership of real work by day 60 to 90.

The knowledge lives in documents, not in people. A checklist is only as good as the pages it links to: product, glossary, who does what, how decisions are made. If a new hire has to ask for every answer, the checklist has pointed at nothing.

Starter rules for the Folio assistant

Four short pages for the .agent folder of the onboarding space. They are plain Markdown that tells the built-in assistant how to answer a new hire; adjust them to your team. Only space admins see and edit this folder.

.agent / How to answer
# How to answer

- Answer in two to five sentences, then stop. Offer to go deeper.
- Use only pages from this space. If the pages do not answer the question, say so.
- End every answer with a line `Sources:` followed by links to the pages you used.
- Explain in plain business language. Avoid jargon unless the glossary defines it.
.agent / Tone
# Tone

- Friendly and direct, like a colleague who started a year ago.
- No lecturing. No more than one question back to the person.
.agent / Glossary
# Glossary

| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| {{Term}} | {{One-sentence definition in the words people use here}} |
.agent / Escalation
# Escalation

If a question is about pay, contracts, legal matters, health, or anything the pages do not cover, do not guess. Tell the person to ask {{their manager / HR contact}} and offer to record the question as unanswered.

More templates

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Questions

What should an employee onboarding checklist include?
Pre-boarding (contract, accounts, equipment, welcome), day one (introductions, tools, first small task), week one (people, product, process), the first 30, 60 and 90 days (goals, ownership, feedback), and a closing review.
How long should onboarding last?
Formal onboarding commonly runs 30 to 90 days, with a check-in at the end of each month. Full productivity in a complex role takes longer, so keep a lighter plan after day 90.
Who is responsible for onboarding?
The hiring manager is accountable. HR handles contracts and compliance, IT handles equipment and access, a buddy handles day-to-day questions, and the new hire owns their learning. The checklist should show who is doing what.
Can this checklist be used for remote employees?
Yes. Add equipment delivery, time-zone overlap, and a video introduction to the team. Replace "walk the office" with a tour of the documentation.
How do I help new hires find answers without interrupting everyone?
Keep the basics in written pages (glossary, product overview, process, who to ask) and make them searchable. In Folio, you can also let an assistant answer from those pages and show its sources, using rules you write in a .agent folder (see below).

Updated 11 October 2026.

Onboarding that answers questions for you

Create the onboarding space in Folio: glossary, product pages, a form that checks what the new hire learned, and this checklist. Then add pages to the space's .agent folder (plain Markdown pages that only space admins see and edit) to tell the built-in assistant how to answer: briefly, in the audience's language, with a Sources: line, and when to say "ask your manager". The new hire asks the assistant; it answers from your pages.

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