How to create an onboarding plan 🤝
For yourself or, as a manager, for your new hires.
Joining a new company is hard.
Five years ago, after almost ten years as co-founder and CTO of my startup, I quit to join Translated, a larger company in the translation space.
I went from a place that I had shaped myself, where I knew all the ins and outs, to one that was completely foreign.
This transition was made even harder by remote work. In fact, for as many upsides we can find in remote, building relationships with your new-found teammates is not one of them.
One of the best practices I have found to overcome all of this is to create a plan for your initial time at the company, setting goals and expectations. This is usually done for the first 90 days, and you may set checkpoints every 30 days, so you get what is commonly called a 30-60-90 plan.
In my experience, your manager may or may not work with you on such a plan. Some managers basically create it for you, while others stay hands-off and expect you to take more initiative.
This is not just a personal preference — the reality is many companies don’t have good onboarding processes. You might find that everyone is busy with their job and your manager is not going to help you in a meaningful way.
That said:
As a new hire — it is important that you create such a plan in any case.
As a manager — you should sit down with your report and create the plan together.
This article provides a simple framework for creating a 30-60-90 plan and setting yourself (or your new report) up for success. We will cover:
🤹♂️ The Learning / Performing / Personal model — the three main types of activities that you are going to spend your time on.
🗺️ How to structure the plan — in themes, goals, and measures.
🗓️ What to do in the various stages — from day 0 to 30, from 30 to 60, and from 60 to 90.
✏️ Templates and examples — that you can use to get started.
📚 Readings and resources — as usual, to learn more.
Let’s dive in!
🤹♂️ Learning / Performing / Personal
A useful framework to reflect on how to spend your time as a new hire is to organize activities into three broad categories: