Steal my 90-Day onboarding plan for your next hire

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Hey Team,

When you bring a new person into your team, in the first 90 days, they aren’t just learning a role… They’re forming beliefs about your company, your leadership, and their future here.

Yet, i’m seeing too many managers mishandle this critical stage of the employee life cycle, and it’s causing real damage.

That first 90 days shapes everything.

And most managers are getting it completely wrong.

So it’s time we talk about it properly.

In this post, I’m walking you through a proven 90-day onboarding plan that sets your team up for real success. With structure, accountability, and clarity baked in.

You might already be giving your new team members the basics…

A few intros, some training, a friendly welcome.

But if you’re not giving them structure and ownership, you’re capping their growth from day one.

Let’s go…

Now,

Hands up if you’ve ever had a terrible onboarding experience.

Meeeee 🙋‍♀️🙋‍♀️🙋‍♀️

You’re not alone.

Only 12% of employees strongly agree that their organisation did a great job onboarding them (Gallup).

And following a negative onboarding experience, new hires are twice as likely to start looking for another job.

Most managers massively underestimate just how important the first 90 days are in setting a new team member up for success.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Whether you’re onboarding one person or an entire team, this will help you create clarity, reduce overwhelm, and drive performance from day one.

Why most onboarding fails

Before we dive into the structure, let’s clear up the most common mistakes managers make:

1. No structure

The classic “just shadow someone for a few days and see how you get on.”

In practice, this leads to awkward moments where your new hire finishes a task and has no clue what to do next.

They either hesitate to ask (so they don’t seem annoying), or interrupt someone else who has to drop what they’re doing.

It's chaotic, inefficient, and undermines confidence early on.

2. Information overload

Dumping everything on someone in their first week and expecting them to retain it all is a recipe for overwhelm.

We need to phase learning in gradually, giving people time to practice, absorb, and build confidence.

3. No accountability

If they’re just being walked through everything with no ownership, they’ll struggle to build confidence, initiative, or problem-solving skills.

We worry that they’re too new. Or we can’t trust them yet with tasks.

But truthfully, handing over ownership asap is the only real way they’ll learn.

The 90-Day onboarding structure

There is a lot of moving parts here that can feel a little complex to break down in a blog post, so before I break it down below, I also did a full YouTube video on this

If you’d prefer to watch the 9-min video format, with visuals (I’d recommend watching):

And you can make a copy of the full onboarding template here.

But for those of you who prefer to read through first, here’s the text breakdown:

1. 📋 The welcome

The very first thing they read when they sit on their laptop, you want to be a warm, clear welcome message.

Explain what the onboarding plan is, what it includes, and how they’ll use it to track their training and milestones. Include:

• Their line manager’s contact details

• Their HR contact

• What they can expect over the next 90 days

Set the tone for ownership from the start. This document is theirs to manage.

Example:
Welcome to team [Company Name], over the next 90 days we will give you all the training and support you need to set you up for success. This spreadsheet will be your goto for training, and over the next 90 days you will tick off each step.

Over the next 90 days we will give you all the training and support you need to set you up for success here at [Company Name]

• Go through in your own time inside the week or month

• At the end of each month, you will run a presentation with your manager showing your key learnings, and areas you feel you need extra support

• This is your training, always reach out for support as and when needed

• There’s no such thing as too many questions

• All the training is for you to get booked in with the right person, so if you need a training session with another person please reach out to them to book that in yourself

You are responsible for ensuring this board is compelte, along with the 30/60/90 day presentations booked in, so if you feel as though anything is getting left behind or you're running out of time to complete, reach out to your manager for further support

✅ Day one

In day one, we wan to cover everything to help them feel like they belong.

Most managers will diver straight into the boring stuff, but we want this day to be filled with vision, inspiration and values. The greatest managers will cover:

• Core values training - what it looks like to live the values day-to-day

• A 90-minute session with you (the manager) to walk through your company’s vision and mission

• Meet the team – introduce them to colleagues across different departments and seniorities so they have allies from day one

• Laptop and tool set-up

🗓️ Week one

As we move through the week, we want them to start to feel some sense of ownership over their tasks.

Key things like:

• Software training sessions – let them book these in with the right people (ownership!)

• Health & safety briefings if needed

• Policies – like sickness and absence etc

Every item should be tickable in your doc so they see visible progress.

In the first week, we want at least 1 task fully delegated over.

🔁 30 / 60 / 90 Day Role-Specific Milestones

Once the culture, tools, and vision are embedded, it’s time to go deep on their actual role.

We need some very clear, structured tasks for them to learn, complete and own, like so:

At the end of each month, they need clear success milestones that you can measure

🎤 Presentations at 30, 60 & 90 Days

At each milestone of 30, 60, 90 days… Ask your new team member to prepare a short presentation covering:

• What they’ve learned

• What they’re proud of

• Where they need more support

This keeps them feeling accountable and motivated, and helps you spot where to give extra help early on.

📚 Include Learning, Not Just Tasks

Not everything should be a to-do. Include learning goals like:

• “Read [Book Title] and reflect on how it applies to your role”

• “Watch this leadership video and bring 3 takeaways to your 1:1”

Development is part of the job. Encourage it.

📝 End with a Roles & Responsibilities Doc

By the end of the 90 days, your team member should write up a living document that outlines:

• Their key responsibilities

• What success looks like in their role

• Their own performance measures

This becomes the foundation of their ongoing development and future 1:1s.

Final thoughts

You don’t need a huge HR team to make onboarding work.

You just need intentionality.

With this 90-day structure, you’ll stop leaving success to chance and start building team members who are confident, capable, and aligned with your team’s goals.

All the best,

H