This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.

HR forgets to order a laptop, IT has not granted access, the manager is on vacation, and the office manager hears for the first time that a new hire starts today. Here are 277 tools to prevent that: 201 ready-to-use checklists, question lists, templates, procedures, matrices and AI prompts, 48 models and methods, 21 services shown on screen and 7 working files.

Open a lecture, take the checklist, prepare your next new hire's first week.

Why onboarding runs on assumptions

Nobody is clearly responsible for each step: HR thinks the manager will meet the new hire, the manager thinks HR will. Tasks live in someone's memory, the first day depends on who happens to be in the office, and probation ends without a real conversation. New hires leave in the first months, and the reason is rarely the hiring decision.

What changes after this course

Onboarding has phases, roles and deadlines. Every new hire gets a ready workplace, a welcome meeting with a clear script and a plan for the first months. You see the employee journey from the candidate stage onwards, communicate with new hires through the right channels and measure time to productivity and early retention.

A note on the structure

The course opens with three practical sections: diagnosis, the onboarding checklist and implementation, with working files for each. The following sections on employee experience, internal communications, engagement, candidate experience and the first 90 days give the broader foundation.

What is inside: 277 tools, counted lecture by lecture

You do not have to take this number on trust. Open any lecture and read its description: every tool inside is listed there by name.

• 42 downloadable resources: the lecture presentations plus 7 working files: the onboarding maturity assessment workbook, the welcome meeting script pack, the onboarding task library, the onboarding checklist workbook, the onboarding ROI calculator, the metrics dashboard workbook and the implementation roadmap workbook
• 201 ready-to-use tools inside the presentations:
• 51 checklists: new-hire onboarding, onboarding launch readiness, first-day induction, probation closure
• 47 question lists and scripts: onboarding feedback meetings, manager welcome meeting, role clarification meetings, end-of-onboarding survey
• 42 templates and sample documents: manager welcome message, onboarding stakeholder map, employee experience journey map, employee handbook outline
• 26 step-by-step procedures and workflows: onboarding checkpoint calendar, buddy program, manager onboarding training, onboarding implementation roadmap
• 17 scorecards, rubrics and matrices: RACI matrix, employee experience scoring, Defect Standard WOW onboarding matrix
• 8 ready AI prompts: onboarding diagnosis, onboarding checklist generation, welcome email generation, onboarding RACI generation
• 5 formulas and metric sets: onboarding KPI dashboard, candidate experience metrics, onboarding metric set
• 5 other working tools: employee experience survey, Google manager feedback survey, five dysfunctions team assessment
• 48 models and methods explained with examples: Four Cs of onboarding, buddy system, Tuckman team development, SHRM onboarding
• 21 services shown on screen, including PeopleForce, Workvivo, Culture Amp, Miro, Notion and 15Five

Where the tools are

• The onboarding playbook (3 sections, 37 tools). Diagnosis, the onboarding checklist with roles and tasks, and implementation with metrics.
• Employee experience (1 section, 49 tools). The journey from pre-hire to offboarding and alumni.
• Onboarding communications (1 section, 45 tools). Audit, goals, personas, channels, difficult news and communication metrics.
• Engagement in the first months (1 section, 78 tools). Engagement drivers, surveys, manager check-ins and one-on-ones.
• Candidate experience and preboarding (1 section, 43 tools). The journey to adaptation, candidate care and candidate feedback.
• Advanced onboarding and the first 90 days (1 section, 55 tools). Programs, preboarding, the first day, the first 30 days and the end of probation.

Who is teaching

I am Mike, the #1 HR instructor on Udemy, with 1,800,000+ course enrollments from 170,000 students, and the author of about 200 books on Amazon. I built the people system at Preply as it became a unicorn and worked at Wargaming, iDeals and Alfa-Bank across 20 years in HR. I hold PHRi, SHRM-CP and HCI sHRBP certifications and represent HRCI in Eastern Europe.

At Preply we moved almost everything into preboarding, before the first day: the profile in the system, signed agreements, a corporate ID, a bank card, equipment, an office pass, a ready workplace and the new hire book. At iDeals we fixed the problem of blurred roles: we wrote down what the manager had to do, HR checked it, and in BambooHR each person received their onboarding steps as tasks.

How to use the course

Start with the three practical sections and prepare the checklist for your next new hire. Then use the following sections to improve one part of the journey at a time. Section and lecture titles show how many tools are inside, and each lecture description lists them by name.

What is included

• 39 lectures across 9 sections, 17 hours
• 42 downloadable resources: lecture presentations and seven working files
• 277 tools across the lessons, including 21 services shown on screen
• Lifetime access to all materials
• Active instructor support in the Q&A section
• A Udemy Certificate of Completion

Where to start

Open the onboarding checklist workbook and assign an owner to every task for the next person who joins your team. Enrol now and start your first lesson today.