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The first few days at a new job shape how an employee feels about your company for months. When onboarding is ad hoc — when IT doesn’t have a laptop ready, when the manager hasn’t blocked time for a welcome meeting, when no one explains how to request access to the tools — new hires disengage before they’ve had a chance to contribute. A Seilers onboarding playbook eliminates that chaos. It gives HR, IT, and managers a shared process to follow so every new hire gets the same structured, welcoming experience regardless of who’s running point.

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What to Include

Cover the entire new hire journey from the moment an offer is accepted through the end of their first 90 days:
Everything that must happen before the new hire walks in on Day 1 — laptop ordered, email account created, workspace access provisioned, welcome email sent, and any required paperwork completed. This section is typically owned by IT and HR together.
A minute-by-minute or hour-by-hour outline of the new hire’s first day: arrival logistics, who greets them, the welcome meeting agenda, team lunch or virtual coffee, and a tour of the office or key Slack channels.
A list of the people the new hire should meet during their first week, the purpose of each meeting, and who is responsible for scheduling them. Include cross-functional stakeholders, not just the immediate team.
Every tool the new hire needs access to, how to request access if it isn’t provisioned automatically, and links to training materials, internal wikis, or recorded walkthroughs for each tool.
A framework for the hiring manager to set clear expectations for what the new hire should achieve in their first 30, 60, and 90 days. Include a template for documenting goals and scheduling check-ins.
How your buddy or mentor program works, who assigns buddies, what the buddy is expected to do (weekly check-ins, being a go-to for questions), and how long the program runs.

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Building It in Seilers

1

Start from the Employee Onboarding template

In Seilers, go to Playbooks → New Playbook and select the Employee Onboarding template. The template includes all the sections above with suggested content you can customize immediately.
2

Customize the pre-arrival checklist as a linked SOP

The pre-arrival checklist is detailed and time-sensitive — it belongs in its own SOP so IT and HR can track completion individually. Create a Pre-Arrival SOP and link it inside the Pre-Arrival section using Link SOP. This way the playbook stays high-level while the SOP handles the step-by-step detail.
3

Add your company-specific resources

Replace the template’s placeholder links with your actual documentation: your company handbook URL, your benefits enrollment portal, your Slack channel guide, your internal wiki, and any recorded training videos. Concrete links make the playbook immediately useful, not aspirational.
4

Assign each section to HR, IT, or the direct manager

Use the Assign Owner control on each section to clarify accountability. Assign the Pre-Arrival checklist and benefits steps to HR, the equipment and access provisioning to IT, and the Day 1 schedule and 30-60-90 goals to the direct manager. Each owner gets notified when their section needs attention.
5

Set a review reminder every 6 months

Go to Playbook Settings → Review Reminders and set a 6-month recurring reminder. Onboarding processes change as your tools evolve, your team grows, and your company culture shifts — a biannual review keeps the playbook accurate.

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Role-Specific Variants

A single onboarding playbook rarely serves every department equally well. An engineer’s first week looks very different from a sales rep’s. Rather than trying to cram every scenario into one document, duplicate your base onboarding playbook and tailor it:
  • Engineering Onboarding: Add sections for dev environment setup, code review process, architecture overview sessions, and first ticket assignment. Link your dev environment SOP directly in the playbook.
  • Sales Onboarding: Include sections for CRM access and hygiene training, product demo certification, territory and quota overview, and shadowing a senior rep on calls.
  • Operations Onboarding: Cover the tools stack, vendor relationship introductions, key recurring meetings, and escalation contacts.
To create a variant, open your base playbook and click Duplicate. Rename it (for example, Engineering Onboarding — v1) and edit only the sections that differ. Shared sections like company values and benefit enrollment can remain identical across variants.
Embed your equipment setup SOP and system access SOP directly inside the Pre-Arrival section of the playbook. New hires and their managers can open and complete both SOPs without leaving the playbook view — keeping everything in one place.

Hiring Playbook

Connect your recruiting process to onboarding with a structured hiring playbook.

Offboarding Playbook

Complete the employee lifecycle with a smooth, compliant offboarding process.