What a new hire gets in writing, in the first week

Echipa HR 365 · reviewed 2026-09-11 · 5 min read

Contracts get signed and handed over — that is the part nobody misses. What is systematically missed are five pieces of information the person receives verbally, on day one, when they retain nothing, and which they will then ask for three times or assume wrongly.

The five things

The last row is the one most often missing and the one that matters most. Someone with no written criteria builds their own version of what “good” means — and at the three-month review discovers they worked to different priorities from the ones expected.

In what form

One page, not a forty-page handbook. A long document sent on day one is not read and, more importantly, is not re-read three weeks later when the question actually comes up. One page is.

• A single document, with the five sections, in the order the questions arise.
• Sent before day one, not on day one — then they have time to read it.
• With the name and contact of the person who can clarify things.
• Updated when something changes, not rewritten by each recruiter.

The second point measurably changes the read rate. A document received two days before day one is almost always opened, because the person is preparing. The same document, handed over on day one, lands in a pile.

What you do not put in it

• Company history and values. Worth saying, but not here — they dilute what is operational.
• The full internal regulations. That is a separate document, with a different purpose and length.
• Details of benefits that change often. Put those somewhere updatable, with a link.
• Promises about progression or raises. They are remembered as commitments.

How you check it landed

Not through a read receipt, which means nothing. Through three questions asked at the end of the first week, in the conversation with the manager: how far ahead do you request leave, who do you ask if something breaks, and what should you be able to do alone in three months.

If the answer to any of them is “I do not know”, the document did not land or is not clear — and that is information about the document, not about the person. By the third new hire who does not know the same thing, that section needs rewriting.

Do I send it to people changing roles internally too?

Yes, the expectations section and the contacts one. An internal move carries the same uncertainties as a hire, except nobody assumes it does — and the person does not ask, because they would be embarrassed to.

Who writes the document?

HR writes the structure and the shared part, the manager fills in the section on first-90-days expectations. HR alone produces something generic; the manager alone forgets it.

Do I give it to people without email as well?

Yes, on paper, in the first shift. The content is just as necessary; only the form adapts.

What if the role is new and I do not know what to write for 90 days?

Write what you want to exist at the end of them — a result, even an approximate one. A new role with no written anchor absorbs, in its first months, every orphaned task in the team.

Where to start

Ask your most recent hire the three verification questions. How many answers are missing tells you exactly which sections to write first.

Then write the page and send it, at the next hire, two days before day one. It is the cheapest onboarding improvement available.

How you keep it current

A welcome document goes stale quickly, because exactly the things in it — the schedule, who the manager is, how leave is requested — are the ones that change. An out-of-date document is worse than none: it creates false expectations that the person acts on and is then corrected for.

The last row is the only one rewritten every time; the other three are shared and updated once for everyone. Separating them in the document — a common part and a per-role section — cuts the maintenance effort to almost nothing.