Onboarding new team members can be one of the most exciting (and sometimes tedious) things about hiring. New hires are almost always excited about the new opportunity, and in most cases, the organization is keen on them to getting to work quickly.

While in-person, synchronous onboarding is excellent, in today's fast-paced and remote world, onboarding checklists are great resources to help new team members get up to speed quickly and autonomously. Here are three things your onboarding checklist may be missing:

• 📚 Context: For new team members, everything is new. When they are onboarding, they need to work extra hard to understand not only the topic but also the context that surrounds the topic. Simply defining that TLA (three-letter acronym) doesn't help; they need to know what it means in the context of the bigger picture. Onboarding checklists are a great way to share some of this critical context. Whether by including a few sentences to orient them or a whole video to provide in-depth education, your checklist is the perfect place to help serve context to your new team members exactly when needed.
• 🤝 Connection: When you're new, sticking your neck out there can be a challenge, even for the most extroverted people. Make it turnkey to quickly build connections by having some pre-baked into their onboarding checklist. Your onboarding checklist is a great place to include opportunities for genuine connection alongside the processes that need to get done. Something as simple as "Schedule 15 minutes with Dan to meet, review your I-9, and hear his hot-take on why Jedi mind tricks are actually really creepy." helps create a safe and welcoming environment for your new team member to connect with.
• 🏆 Challenges: New team members are usually incredibly engaged and excited to dig in and make a difference, even if they don’t know how right away. While they are still orienting themselves to their role and the organization, it is a great time to channel some of that energy into mini-challenges they can complete to connect with the team in new ways. Whether it is helping find and report a bug, asking a team member about a topic of company lore, or being brave enough to give a public shoutout in their first week, challenges in your onboarding checklist are a roadmap to future engagement.

Are you interested in leveling up your onboarding game? If so, we can help you get great at welcoming, orienting, and engaging new team members early.

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