Onboarding checklist for a small business's first hire

Before day one, decide what success looks like. Write down what the new hire should be doing in a normal week, what they should have produced by the end of the first month, and what good looks like at ninety days. If you cannot write this, the role is not yet defined, and it is much easier to fix that now than in month three.

Next, the paperwork. Issue a written appointment letter setting out the role, pay, working hours, probation period, notice period and place of work. India's four labour codes, which came into effect on 21 November 2025, make appointment letters mandatory for workers, so this is no longer optional good practice. Ask in advance for the documents you need from them, so day one is not spent on forms. Check with your accountant whether your business is covered by the provident fund and ESI schemes at your size and wage levels, and register the new employee if it is. What applies depends on your size, sector and state, so take professional advice rather than relying on a general list.

Prepare the policies they will need to see. At minimum, that means how leave, attendance and working hours work, what is expected around confidentiality and access to customer data, and a policy on sexual harassment at the workplace. Under the POSH Act, employers must have such a policy; a business with ten or more employees must also have an Internal Committee, and a smaller business's employees can go to the Local Committee in the district. A first hire is a good moment to put this in place, rather than after something has gone wrong.

Get the practical things ready: a desk or workspace, equipment, email and software accounts, access to the systems they will use, and nothing more than they need. Name one person who is responsible for them in the first week. In a very small business, that is probably you, so block the time in your calendar now. Send a short message before they start saying when to arrive, who will meet them, and what the first day will involve.

On the first day, make sure somebody is waiting for them. Explain what the business does, for whom, and how their role fits. Introduce them to the people they will work with, including any regular suppliers or customers they will deal with. Explain the everyday rules: hours, how to ask for leave, who to ask about what. And give them one small, real task to finish before they go home. A day spent only reading documents tells a new employee nobody quite knew what to do with them.

In the first week, let them learn the work with somebody beside them. Do a task together, then let them do it while you watch, then let them do it with your review. Show them the tools and how work flows through the business. Have a short check-in at the end of each day, even ten minutes, and a longer conversation at the end of the week about what is clear, what is confusing, and what they need.

In the first month, move them onto real work with clear responsibilities, written down. Hold a short weekly check-in. Give feedback as things happen, both what is going well and what needs to change, rather than saving it for a review. Ask them what they are finding confusing or what is missing; a new person sees gaps in a business that the owner has stopped noticing.

At about six weeks, have a mid-point conversation against the success measures you wrote before they joined. At ninety days, or at the end of the probation period stated in the appointment letter, hold a proper review and write it down. Confirm them, extend the probation with clear reasons and a date, or, if it is clearly not working, act promptly and fairly, following the terms in the letter and taking advice if needed.

For interns and freelancers, use a shorter version: a written letter or agreement stating terms, one named person to go to, a defined piece of work with an end date, access limited to what the work needs, and feedback at the end. The POSH Act's definition of an employee includes trainees and apprentices, paid or unpaid, so treat interns as covered by the same policy.

The whole checklist fits on one page: who is responsible, what is ready before day one, what happens on day one and in week one, what they produce in month one, and when the check-ins and the ninety-day review take place. Write that page before you make the offer, and your first hire has a fair chance of working.