Onboarding checklist

This free onboarding checklist template is a workflow-drift audit. Instead of listing tasks, it tests whether your onboarding teaches the workflow your team actually runs now or the one from before AI changed the job. Mark the 12 statements that are true today, get a drift band, and see which gaps to fix first. Free, no login.

The 12 checks

1. Your onboarding materials were last rewritten in the past 6 months.
2. The workflow you train is the one your best operator actually runs, workarounds included.
3. The steps AI changed in the last 2 years are written down, not improvised.
4. A new hire learns the real process from a document, not from a Slack thread on day 12.
5. Someone owns keeping the onboarding current when the work changes.
6. Every core workflow has one named owner a new hire can ask.
7. Exceptions and edge cases are documented, not just the happy path.
8. A new hire knows which decisions they can make alone and which need approval.
9. By day 5, a new hire can name the tool the team actually uses for each core task.
10. Onboarding is measured by time to first real output, not modules completed.
11. The content teaches judgment, the why, not just the sequence of steps.
12. When a core workflow changed last quarter, the onboarding changed with it.

The drift bands

• 0 to 3 true: teaching a job that no longer exists.
• 4 to 7 true: drifting, the document and the work have started to diverge.
• 8 to 10 true: mostly current, a few workflows outran the training.
• 11 to 12 true: current, onboarding tracks the actual work.

Frequently asked questions