SoapBox Employee Onboarding Template

Soapbox employee onboarding template walk-through:

Why is onboarding so important?

A great onboarding experience is one that involves every key individual, not just HR. The onboarding experience is what sets the tone for every new hire you bring onto your team. When you're able to set new hires up for success from day one, you'll build up their confidence and ramp them up faster.

This onboarding template is something that we use with every new hire at Soapbox. We're incredibly proud of the onboarding experiences we've created for every new hire and want the same for your team!

1. 🗂 HR stuff to do

Nothing is more awkward than showing up on your first day and awkwardly sitting around waiting for your new team to figure out a plan. New employees want to hit the ground running just as much as you want them to. So, plan out everything that HR needs to get done before their first day and beyond. This can include things like:

• Email setup
• Inviting them to all relevant tools like Soapbox and Slack
• Have all necessary documents ready to be signed
• Invites to recurring company-wide events like Town Halls
• Anything else that's on HRs plate (this will vary at every company)

2. 💻 Desk set up and swag

Whether you're onsite or remote, find a fun way to welcome each and every individual to your team. Whether it's putting streamers, balloons, and branded swag all over someone's desk, or mailing a fun welcome package, make a lasting first impression to welcome every new hire on your team! 🎉

3. 📩 Invites to all meetings and platforms

This is likely a shared responsibility between HR, the office manager, and the hiring manager. Across all three of these individuals, make sure that the new hire is invited to every meeting they should be a part of. This can include:

• Team meetings
• One-on-one meetings (manager, peers, skip-level, etc)
• Culture meetings (coffee chats, work events, etc)
• Company-wide meetings (town hall, demo day, etc)

The first two weeks

Plan out milestones for their first two weeks and break it down day-by-day. For any new hire, this is incredibly helpful because it allows for more structure and direction as they get settled into their new role.

Here's a sample of tasks for their first week:

🗓 Day 1 – Welcome to the company!

• Set up your laptop
• Set up your profile on all invited tools (Slack, Soapbox, Jira, etc)
• Review calendar and accept invites
• Start reading your onboarding document (attached to this agenda)
• Fill out paperwork from HR

🗓 Day 2 – Get to know the team

• Meet with your manager to talk department specifics
• Continue reading onboarding documents
• Welcome orientation with CEO
• Get introduced to your onboarding buddy

🗓 Day 3 – Get to know more of the team

• Review the company website to learn more about the product or service and brand
• Learn about your team’s work and process (I.e. Code review, reading support tickets or blog content, or reviewing the product roadmap).
• HR orientation

🗓 Day 4 – Get to know your team better

• Start your first project! (The manager should determine this)
• Enjoy your welcome lunch with the team!
• First team meeting

🗓 Day 5 – The first week is done!

• Check-in with your manager – How was your first week?
• Product team orientation
• Continue working on your first project

Other important information

Use this section as a way to include any other relevant information that you feel will be helpful for your new hire to know.

At Soapbox, we implement wired-in-Wednesdays, meaning that it's a day for everyone at the company to dial into their work. No meetings. No interruptions. So, we let every new hire know that!

Other things you can share with new hires is any activities they can get involved with. Do you have a wine and cheese club? What about a channel dedicated to video game lovers? Let them know! This will make the get-to-know-you phase a lot easier because they'll be able to bond over common interests with their new coworkers.