Employee Onboarding Checklist: What to Include and How to Run It in Microsoft Teams

An employee onboarding checklist helps HR teams manage every step of onboarding in a structured, repeatable way. Without one, important tasks get missed, responsibilities become unclear, and the experience varies depending on who is running the process.

This guide covers what to include in your onboarding checklist, how to structure it by phase, the different checklist types your team will need, and how to run the entire process inside Microsoft Teams.

What Is Employee Onboarding?

Onboarding is the process of integrating new employees into your organization. It covers more than paperwork and system access: it includes helping new hires understand their role, your team's working norms, and what success looks like in their first weeks.

New hires who go through structured onboarding ramp up faster, feel less overwhelmed, and are more likely to stay. Research from Insight Global found that about 70% of new hires decide whether a job is the right fit within their first month, with nearly 29% making that decision within the first week.

The Six Phases of Employee Onboarding

Effective onboarding follows six phases, from pre-hire preparation through the second month, each with distinct tasks and outcomes.

1. Pre-onboarding (before day one): Paperwork, system access setup, and initial communication so new hires feel prepared before they start.

2. First day: Introductions, role overview, and essential policies.

3. Second day: Tool walkthroughs, workflow explanations, and early exposure to role-specific tasks.

4. First week: Deeper training, team integration, and early feedback sessions.

5. First month: Alignment on expectations, skill development, and regular check-ins.

6. Second month and beyond: Goal reviews, performance check-ins, and longer-term development planning.

Trying to cover everything at once creates information overload and inconsistent execution. Structuring onboarding by phase helps you pace learning and keep each stage manageable.

Why Onboarding Breaks Down Without a Checklist

Onboarding breaks down when coordination between HR, managers, and IT relies on informal handoffs and scattered follow-ups. Structured task tracking gives each person a clear view of what needs to happen, who is responsible, and what has already been completed.

New hires often receive too much information at once, have no clear sense of what to expect, and experience different standards depending on who runs the process. These issues compound as headcount grows.

What Is an Employee Onboarding Checklist?

An employee onboarding checklist is a structured list of tasks that turns onboarding from a loose process into defined steps that can be tracked, assigned, and reviewed. It creates a shared reference point for HR, managers, and IT, supporting cross-team collaboration so nothing falls through the gaps.

Employees who go through structured onboarding are reported to be 18x more likely to feel committed to their employer.

What Should an Employee Onboarding Checklist Include?

An onboarding checklist should cover tasks across four areas, each involving different people on different timelines:

• Compliance tasks: Paperwork, policy acknowledgments, and access permissions that must be completed accurately and on time.

• Role and responsibility clarification: Training steps, job expectations, and early goals so new hires understand what is expected.

• Culture and connection: Introductions to company values, team norms, and relationship-building opportunities.

• Ongoing feedback and development: Check-in points and feedback loops to identify gaps and improve onboarding over time.

Visibility and task assignment matter as much as the content of the checklist. Without them, even a complete list becomes a document no one tracks.

Types of Employee Onboarding Checklists

Onboarding involves four distinct checklists: one for HR, one for managers, one for IT, and one for remote employees. Using a separate checklist for each team keeps responsibilities clear and prevents tasks from overlapping or being dropped.

HR Onboarding Checklist

Covers compliance, documentation, employee records, and policy acknowledgments: tasks that must be completed accurately before and during the first week.

Manager Onboarding Checklist

Helps hiring managers track role-specific tasks including training plans, goal setting, performance expectations, and early feedback sessions. Task assignment and progress tracking keeps every manager-owned step visible alongside daily work.

IT Onboarding Checklist

Covers system access, equipment setup, security requirements, and tool provisioning so new hires can work from day one.

Remote Employee Onboarding Checklist

Addresses the additional coordination needed for remote hires: communication setup, async workflows, tool access, and engagement without in-person interaction.

Tips for Using an Onboarding Checklist Effectively

Four practices will determine whether your checklist stays current and works consistently across every hire:

• Only include essential tasks per phase: limit each stage to what matters most at that point.

• Assign a clear owner to every task so accountability is explicit.

• Use one shared checklist so HR, managers, and IT all work from the same source.

• Update the checklist after each hiring cycle to keep it accurate and relevant.

How to Measure and Improve Your Onboarding Process

Collect feedback from new hires after their first month, review checklist completion rates, and identify which steps are consistently missed or delayed. Use that data to refine the checklist before the next hire.

Managing onboarding through documents or shared drives creates friction as the process becomes more collaborative and recurring. A dedicated checklist tool for Microsoft Teams integrated into where your team already works makes a practical difference.

How to Run Employee Onboarding in Microsoft Teams

Your team already works in Microsoft Teams. Checklist as a Service runs natively inside Teams and gives HR teams a structured way to set up, assign, and track onboarding tasks without switching tools.

Here is how to set up an employee onboarding checklist in three steps.

Step 1: Create the checklist

Fill in the checklist details: the requestor, a checklist title (for example, "HR Onboarding of John"), the new hire's start date as the event date, the checklist template, and the calendar type.

Checklist as a Service includes a built-in HR Onboarding template with predefined tasks. Select "HR - Onboarding" from the template dropdown. For the calendar, Standard Calendar uses Monday to Friday working days with no public holidays. You can also configure a custom calendar to match your team's working schedule.

Step 2: Set due dates and assignees for each task

Before submitting, each task shows a relative due date based on the event date. For example, a due date of -5 means the task must be completed 5 working days before the new hire's start date. A due date of -1 means the day before.

The HR Onboarding template includes tasks such as:

• Procure PC and software (-5 days)

• Collect employee documents (-5 days)

• Get employee induction ready (-1 day)

• Register new employee in HR, payroll, and insurance (-1 day)

• Manager announces new joiner to all teams (-1 day)

• Add employee to relevant Microsoft Teams channels (-1 day)

• Prepare PC with software and antivirus (-1 day)

Assign each task to the responsible team member. Tasks can also have a reviewer for oversight.

Step 3: Submit the checklist

Once submitted, all relative due dates convert to actual calendar dates based on the event date. Tasks 1 and 2 in the example above land on 23 Feb 2023, and tasks 3 through 7 land on 27 Feb 2023. Every assignee can see their tasks, due dates, and status from within Microsoft Teams.

Employee Onboarding Checklist Templates

Checklist as a Service includes a library of 300+ ready-to-use templates you can adapt for different roles, departments, and hiring scenarios. Starting from a template saves time and ensures consistency across every hire.

Below is an example from the built-in HR Onboarding template. You can add or remove tasks, adjust due dates, and assign owners or reviewers to fit your team's workflow.

Start your free trial and run your first employee onboarding checklist inside Microsoft Teams today.

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TeamsWork is a Microsoft Partner Network member, and their expertise lies in developing Productivity Apps that harness the power of the Microsoft Teams platform and its dynamic ecosystem. Their SaaS products, including CRM as a Service, Ticketing as a Service and Checklist as a Service, are highly acclaimed by users. Users love the user-friendly interface, seamless integration with Microsoft Teams, and affordable pricing plans. They take pride in developing innovative software solutions that enhance company productivity while being affordable for any budget.