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All-in-one HR platform · v2.0
14-day free trial · No credit cardhello@HrMagix.com
All-in-one HR platform · v2.0
14-day free trial · No credit cardhello@HrMagix.com
Onboarding goes wrong in small, specific ways. A laptop that arrives on day three, a PF nomination that is never collected, a bank account entered with one digit wrong, a manager who forgot the person was starting. None of these are hard to prevent. They happen because joining is a set of tasks owned by four different people and written down by none of them.
This employee onboarding checklist runs from the day the offer is accepted to the end of the first month. For what onboarding is and why it matters, see the onboarding topic page; this guide is the step list.
01
The moment an offer is accepted, create the joining record and assign each task to a named person with a date. The usual owners are HR for documents and letters, IT or admin for equipment and access, the reporting manager for the first week's work, and payroll for the salary record.
This is also when you decide the joining date for payroll purposes. If the person joins after your attendance cut-off, their first month's salary is either prorated into the current run or carried as arrears into the next. Decide which before day one, and tell the new joiner, because a missing first salary is the most common complaint in a new hire's first month.
02
Send the document list in advance through whatever channel you use, so the first morning is not spent photocopying. Ask for each item once, with a clear reason, and record what was received.
The statutory details matter most because payroll uses them in the first run. A previous employer's UAN lets the provident fund account continue rather than a new one being opened. A prior employer's salary and tax deducted for the current financial year are needed so tax under Section 192 is projected correctly from the first month.
Watch for itBank details typed from a phone photo are the commonest cause of a failed first salary credit. Verify the account number against a document, not against what the person typed.
03
Day one has two jobs: complete the formalities that must be signed, and make sure the person can actually work by the afternoon. Keep the paperwork to the morning.
The statutory declarations collected on joining include the EPF declaration form (Form 11) for provident fund members and the nomination form, and the ESI declaration where the employee is covered by the ESI Act. Policies the person must acknowledge, such as the code of conduct and the prevention of sexual harassment policy, should be acknowledged in a way you can prove later.
04
By the end of the first week the employee should exist correctly in payroll: salary structure attached, statutory identifiers recorded, bank account verified, tax regime choice and investment declaration collected. If any of these are missing at your payroll cut-off, the first salary will be wrong.
The manager owns the other half of the week. A short written plan for the first month, even a few lines, tells the new hire what good looks like. The 30-60-90 day plan guide covers how to write one.
Watch for itAsk new joiners to choose their tax regime and submit a declaration in the first week. Without it, TDS for their first months is computed on the default regime, and switching later changes every remaining month's deduction.
05
Onboarding should end on a date, with a short conversation between the manager and the employee and a check that every task on the list is done. Open items left after a month tend to stay open.
Use the check-in to ask two things: what was missing that the person needed, and what in the process was confusing. Those answers improve the checklist for the next joiner, which is the only way it gets better.
Every guide ends here rather than in a summary. If a line below is not true yet, that is the next thing to do.
Identity and address proof, PAN, bank details verified against a document, existing UAN if any, education and previous employment records as your policy requires, and the previous employer's salary and TDS for the year if the person joins mid-year.
When the offer is accepted. Equipment, access and the payroll record take time, and doing them before joining is what makes day one usable.
Typically the EPF declaration (Form 11) and nomination for provident fund members, and the ESI declaration for employees covered by the ESI Act. Check the current forms on the EPFO and ESIC portals, as formats are revised from time to time.
Tax under Section 192 is computed on the whole financial year's income. Without the earlier salary and TDS, the new employer under-projects income and the shortfall shows up later in the year.
Set an end date, commonly around day thirty, with a manager check-in and a review that every task is closed. Probation is separate and usually runs longer.
The checklist above is generic by necessity. Bring your own structures, states and rota and we will tell you which lines are already true and which are not.
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