Benefits of Using an Employee Onboarding Checklist

The benefits of using an employee onboarding checklist are usually described as not forgetting things. There is a second benefit that only becomes visible under pressure.

When an incident happens in someone’s first months, the question asked afterwards is what the organisation did to prepare them. Was safety information provided. Was the relevant policy acknowledged. Was training assigned and completed. Was the supervision appropriate for somebody new to the work.

A completed checklist, with dates and names recorded against each item, answers that question. Somebody’s recollection a year later does not.

The consistency point matters as well. Where onboarding varies by manager, so does what people end up knowing, and those differences show up in incident rates and early departures long before anyone connects the two.

Safe Work Australia covers information, training and supervision duties. This is general information rather than legal advice, and obligations vary by state and territory.

See Sentrient’s onboarding management system and records management software.