Employee onboarding checklist for a small business

Onboarding covers everything from an accepted offer to the point where a new hire can work a shift alone. That means paperwork, the first day, training and a few check-ins. In a shop with one or a few locations, the owner or manager often does all of it between other jobs, and steps that live in someone's head get skipped in a busy week.

This guide sets out the steps in order, the federal forms with deadlines, and a table you can copy. It is general information for US employers, not legal advice.

How to onboard a new employee

The employee onboarding process in a small shop comes down to six steps:

1. Send the paperwork and first-day details once the offer is accepted.
2. Prepare the schedule, keys, uniform and logins before the start date.
3. Spend the first day on a welcome, safety, the store layout and one or two core tasks.
4. Train the role over the first week, with a named person to ask.
5. Check in at the end of week one, then at 30, 60 and 90 days.
6. Note what was confusing and fix the list before the next hire.

Give every step an owner and a date. A line with no name beside it waits for a quiet day that never comes.

New employee paperwork

Two federal forms come up for nearly every hire.

• Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification. The employee completes and signs Section 1 no later than their first day of employment, and can fill it in any time after accepting the offer. You review their documents and complete Section 2 within three business days of their first day, so a Monday start means Section 2 is due by Thursday. You must make the form's instructions and the list of acceptable documents available to the new hire. See the USCIS guidance on completing Section 1.
• Form W-4, Employee's Withholding Certificate. The employee fills it in so you can withhold the correct federal income tax from their pay. The IRS page for Form W-4 has the current form.

State rules vary. Your state may have its own withholding form, new hire reporting or required notices, so check with your state's labor and tax agencies before the first day. The Department of Labor's FirstStep Employment Law Advisor helps employers work out which major federal employment laws apply to them, what records they must keep and which posters they must display. It points to your state labor office for state requirements.

Your own forms cover direct deposit, an emergency contact and a signed copy of your house rules. Keep all completed forms somewhere locked, since they hold personal details.

What to do on a new employee's first day

A new person remembers little from a day of talking, so mix explanation with doing:

• Welcome them, show them where to put their things and introduce the team on shift.
• Walk the floor and back room: exits, first aid kit, restrooms, break area and stockroom.
• Finish Section 1 of the I-9 if it is not done, and collect direct deposit and emergency contact details.
• Explain breaks, how to call in sick and who to ask for help.
• Teach one or two core tasks, such as opening the register, then let them do it with someone beside them.
• End with ten minutes for questions.

Keep the first day of work checklist short enough to finish by closing time, and move the rest to the first week.

The first week

Pair the new hire with a buddy who works the same shifts. Train in short blocks with practice in between: opening and closing, cash handling, receiving a delivery and answering customer questions. Written procedures let a new person check a page instead of interrupting a busy colleague.

At the end of the week, spend fifteen minutes on what is going well, what is still confusing and whether the schedule works.

An onboarding plan for new hires, 30 to 90 days

Write down what "trained" means for the role, so you both work toward the same goal.

• By day 30: works most shifts without close supervision.
• By day 60: handles customer questions, deliveries and restocking alone.
• By day 90: does the full role. Review progress together and agree on next steps.

A new hire checklist you can copy

An onboarding checklist for new employees works best when each line names the person responsible and a due date. Copy the table into a document or spreadsheet and adjust it for your store.

How long should onboarding take?

There is no legal rule for its length, though the paperwork has its own clock, with I-9 Section 2 due within three business days of the start. For a shop role, plan basic training for the first one or two weeks and let the check-ins carry the rest. Treating the first 90 days as onboarding lets a new hire see a full cycle of deliveries, busy weekends and stock counts.

Running the checklist in headoffis

In headoffis, the Onboarding section turns a list like this into assigned tasks. First add the person in People & roles and confirm their seat, because onboarding starts only for someone who is already a member of the business. Then choose Start onboarding and pick the person, a template, a coordinator and the start date. Each template step becomes a task on the Work board for the new person or the coordinator, due a set number of days before or after the start date.

The starter template has five steps, from a welcome the day before the start to a first-week check-in. You can edit templates to add the paperwork and the 30, 60 and 90 day reviews. Due dates count calendar days, so allow for the business-day rule on the I-9 step. An employee sees their own checklist tasks in My tasks, without the full record or your manager notes.

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