New Hire, Day One: An IT Onboarding Checklist That Works
Laptop not ready, no email, waiting on passwords? A practical IT onboarding and offboarding checklist so new hires are productive from day one.
A new hire’s first day says a lot about your company. If they spend it waiting for a laptop, chasing passwords and asking who to call, that’s a frustrating start — and lost productivity. With a simple checklist, IT onboarding becomes routine instead of a scramble.
Before Day One
- Device ready: laptop set up, updated, encrypted and labeled
- Accounts created: email, Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, and the apps their role needs
- Access by role: only the folders, systems and shared drives they actually need
- Security set up: multi-factor authentication ready to activate on first sign-in
On Day One
- A short walkthrough of sign-in, MFA and password manager
- How to get help: who to call, how to open a ticket, what counts as urgent
- The basics of staying safe: spotting phishing and reporting anything suspicious
- Printers, Wi-Fi, shared calendars and video calls — all tested and working
The First Week
Check in after a few days. Are there tools they still can’t access? Anything confusing? Small fixes early prevent bigger frustrations later.
Don’t Forget Offboarding
When someone leaves, their access should leave with them — the same day. A good offboarding checklist covers:
- Disabling accounts and removing access to shared files
- Recovering devices and wiping them securely
- Forwarding or archiving email and handing over important files
- Updating shared passwords they may have known
Make It Repeatable
What makes it work is consistency: the same steps every time, written down and owned by someone. That’s how Synq runs it for our clients: standardized devices, accounts ready before the first morning, and a clear “who to call for what” playbook. New hires are productive on day one, and departures never leave a security gap behind.
Last updated October 14, 2026
