New hires rarely leave because of the work. They leave because the start was confusing. In Canada’s tight market, the first 90 days decide whether a new teammate becomes productive, engaged, and likely to stay. This plan is made for Canadian small and Medium-sized Businesses (SMBs). Use this plan as a copy-ready path from preboarding to a confident probation decision.
What success looks like by Day 30, 60, and 90
Day 30
- ▶ All tools and access are ready with no blockers
- ▶ Clear understanding of customers, products, and success metrics
- ▶ One or two early wins delivered with support from a buddy and manager
Day 60
- ▶ Core tasks handled independently to the expected standard
- ▶ Regular communication and participation in team rituals
- ▶ A simple development plan with visible progress
Day 90
- ▶ Ownership of a defined scope with KPIs
- ▶ Strong peer relationships and contributions to improvements
- ▶ Ready for a fair probation review and next quarter goals
Preboarding checklist
Paperwork
- ▶ Signed offer and contract
- ▶ Emergency contact and banking details gathered securely
Access and equipment
- ▶ Laptop and phone prepared
- ▶ Email, VPN, MFA, shared drives, Slack or Teams
- ▶ Required software licenses provisioned
Role brief
- ▶ Job scorecard with mission, outcomes, and KPIs
- ▶ 90 day plan
- ▶ Organisation chart, glossary, and customer snapshot
Day 1 agenda
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▶ A welcome meeting should be done between the new employee and his/her future team, a company lunch with the manager would be perfect 😉
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▶ Orientation
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▶ Tech check and logins
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▶ Company purpose, customers, and values
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▶ Safety and compliance primer tailored to the role
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▶ Manager 1 to 1 on expectations for the week
30 Days Plan
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▶ Complete mandatory training, including safety and privacy
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▶ Shadow processes end-to-end and run one with supervision
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▶ Ship a small, valuable deliverable and share lessons learned
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▶ Weekly 1 to 1 with the manager and two buddy touch points each week
60 Days Plan
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▶ Own a standard workflow and document a simple SOP
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▶ Partner with another team to remove one recurring blocker
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▶ Present a short risk and improvement update in a team meeting
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▶ Weekly 1 to 1 with the manager and a weekly buddy check-in
90 Days Plan
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▶ Meet core KPIs for two straight weeks
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▶ Mentor a teammate on a narrow task
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▶ Propose next quarter’s goals and a development plan
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▶ Complete probation review and agree on next steps
Sector playbooks
Manufacturing
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▶ Safety and compliance: OH and S orientation, WHMIS, lockout tagout, PPE fit, incident reporting
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▶ Quality: SOP sign-offs, first article checks, deviation handling
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▶ Shift integration: handover rituals, takt time targets, 5S audit
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▶ Early win: reduce a small changeover time or update a visual SOP
Healthcare
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▶ Privacy and ethics: confidentiality agreements, PHIPA and PIPEDA awareness, secure charting
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▶ Credentialing: license verification and immunizations, where required
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▶ Clinical safety: incident reporting, infection control, emergency codes
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▶ Early win: close a documentation gap or standardize a handoff checklist
Finance
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▶ Regulatory: AML and ATF basics, FINTRAC concepts, KYC and KYB workflow, records retention
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▶ Controls: segregation of duties, approval thresholds, audit trail hygiene
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▶ Tools: core ledger or CRM, exception ticketing, reconciliation cadence
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▶ Early win: automate a reconciliation or clear a set of stale exceptions
IT and Technology
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▶ Environment: codebase tour, environment setup, build test, deploy, runbooks
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▶ Quality: branching strategy, PR do’s and don’ts, test coverage targets
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▶ Security: least privilege access, secrets handling, incident basics
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▶ Early win: ship a small PR, remove a papercut bug, or improve a README file
Probation review
Use a simple rubric scored 1 to 3
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▶ Role mastery
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▶ Collaboration
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▶ Values and safety or compliance
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▶ Ownership and learning agility
Outcomes
Onboarding is not paperwork. It is confidence-building. Create early wins, clear standards, and a steady rhythm of support, and your 90 days will turn new hires into long-term contributors.
