Ask HN: Best practices for onboarding new employees?

I'm building a personal checklist of onboarding items. It contains the usual categories - hr/payroll stuff, phone/email/slack setups, product details, customer commits/requests, risks/issues, etc.

The main concern is how to be productive from day 1 without being a time suck for the CEO & CTO. Does anybody have 1) a shareable best-practice checklist, or 2) a methodology of quizzing my new coworkers?

Appreciate it.

The good thing is you actually don't need someone with an engineering background for this. And that community building skill they acquire can translate into onboarding new users as well.

In short, its the perfect entry-level position for a candidate with a liberal arts background who wants to get into tech. Best of luck!

1) You're going to have plenty of questions, and a lot of the stuff you'll see / hear / read won't make sense at first.

- Accept this fact

- When you get stuck on something or don't understand it, make a note of it and move on to another topic. You'll have plenty to look at anyway.

- Keep a running list of questions and ask for some dedicated time slots with your managed / mentor / peers to go over the list. 30 min a day or so should be enough to go over all your questions without being a time leech.

- Armed with your answer, go back to the documents that didn't make sense. Read them again. Is it all clear now? If not, write down new questions.

- When you're really stuck and can't make any forward progress without an answer, raise your hand (metaphorically or literally) and ask for help. DON'T wait for the next dedicated slot - I'd rather "waste" 15 minutes dealing with an employee issue than have them waste an entire day.

2) You'll see things that surprise you, or don't make sense, or could obviously (from your point of view) be improved.

- Write these down as you notice them. You'll be amazed at how quickly you'll grow used to them and cease to notice them.

- After you've settled in (a few weeks), raise them to you manager. "I was surprised by X", "how come everyone does Y", "at my previous job we used to do Z to manage X"... External feedback is always appreciated (or should be anyway) and this is your only opportunity to take stock of the issues with an external perspective.

3) Unsure what to do? Ask what needs to be done. What's the current hot topic, is there something urgent that nobody can get around to do or has the skills to handle?

- There's ALWAYS something (or more likely a huge list of somethings) that needs to be done but somehow isn't making progress in a startup. It's not that they're unimportant tasks, merely that there's just too much to do.

- This can score you quick points with the team, help you get a handle on the context, and fight the feeling of non-productivity.

1. Greet the new person and ask them what they are doing there? Are they a vendor? client? someone who accidentally walked in? Oh, they're a new employee.

2. Ask them if they know what their job is supposed to be. If not, find them a spot to sit down while you ask around.

3. Ask IT to get them a laptop. If they don't have one, send out to get one from best buy. When they ask what type say "good, but not too expensive"

4. Ask them how their day is, if they want coffee

5. Get back to work, forget about them.

6. Go back and realize that no one knows what they are supposed to do.

7. Randomly assign them various tasks.

Whatever best practices are must surely be the opposite of this.

At large companies I have seen:

1. 12 binders full of details about healthcare, policies, what happens if you pass away and other remote events

2. Orientation that feels like an abstract business school course

3. On day 1, you are asked to do something really simple to get your bearings.

4. Day 2, you are asked to do something really massive because by now you must surely know your way around.