Why onboarding needs a repeatable template
The first time I tried to onboard a new hire, I opened up a Notion page, copied over an outdated checklist from Dropbox, and then spent about three hours hunting down links to Slack channels. Half of it was guesswork because I couldn’t even remember which Google Drive folder held the employee handbook anymore. It was a mess, and even though I swore I’d clean it up, I kept running the process from memory for months. The problem is that without a real SOP template, the onboarding depends on my mood that day. Some hires got crisp task lists, others just got a bunch of scattered links in a Slack DM. Clearly not sustainable.
The actual reason you want a consistent SOP template is because your brain will absolutely forget the small steps. Opening the HR tool, double checking email signatures, setting timezone preferences in calendar — those are tiny things that cause annoying back and forth when skipped. Imagine starting a new job and not even getting added to the right project tool for three days. That feels careless, and it is preventable if the template just includes the simple but boring items.
Once I made peace that memory was not a workflow, I built a basic template that listed every onboarding task in order of urgency. I use a very simple structure: who assigns it, where the resource lives, and how the hire confirms completion. Nothing fancy, just the assurance that the process is the same each time. It instantly cut down on those awkward “oh I forgot to send you this” emails 😛
Building the actual sop template document
My first attempt was a long document in Google Docs. Too long honestly. It read like a textbook and the hires barely looked at it. I realized quickly that the format mattered just as much as the content. Now I keep the SOP template in a table format because tables force you to be concrete.
Here’s a simple example layout:
| Step | Task | Tool Link | Owner | Confirmation |
|——|——|———–|——-|————–|
| 1 | Create company email | Google Admin | IT | Log in works |
| 2 | Add to Slack | Slack | Manager | Sends a message |
| 3 | Share handbook | Google Drive | HR | Reads sections |
Breaking it down this way stops me from writing vague items like “make sure they have access.” Instead, it forces me to name the system, the person responsible, and a yes or no outcome. It might feel overly rigid, but when you’re on your third hire of the month and you’re juggling a new Zap that keeps misfiring, you’ll thank yourself.
I eventually connected this table into a project management tool. Now each row turns into a task card automatically so the hire can self check things instead of bothering me.
Common mistakes when writing sop templates
The biggest mistake I made early was writing onboarding SOPs in vague language. I wrote “make sure email works” as a step. That sounds fine until you realize half of my new hires used Gmail mobile as their first check-in and failed to notice that their desktop inbox wasn’t syncing. The better phrasing I use now is “log into email on desktop and confirm no error message.” Super specific. Beginners reading the SOP have no clue what counts as “working” otherwise.
Another common failure is skipping screenshots or examples. Obviously, not every SOP can have images, but if you can at least insert parenthetical notes like “you should see a blue button labeled Invite” then the hire knows instantly if they’re in the right place. Without that, they ping you endlessly. I learned this the hard way when one person clicked the wrong tab in Trello (which they renamed to Workspace by the way, still confuses me), and set up an entirely new blank board. I didn’t notice for a week.
Third mistake, and this one hurts, is writing the template too much for your own brain rather than the hire’s. You know what you mean when you write “set up automations,” but does a day one hire have any clue what that is. Probably not. The SOP must be simple, like “turn on the Slack out of office defaults so you get automatic reminders.” When I rewrote everything in plain steps, the questions dropped by more than half.
Deciding what belongs in onboarding sop
This is the part where you can get carried away. I once put things like “Learn our branding tone” as a day one task which was completely unrealistic. It belongs in training, not onboarding. What definitely belongs is tasks that are binary: completed or not completed. Get email account, yes or no. Access project software, yes or no. That’s all that should be in the SOP template, otherwise it turns into a fifty page onboarding bible that nobody reads.
I match the scope to the first week basics. My hires should have:
– Logins to all required tools
– Introduction to all teammates
– Initial project assigned
– Handbook received
That’s it for the official SOP template. Everything else can live in optional resources or training modules later. When I forced myself to stop “just adding one more helpful thing” the document finally stabilized and didn’t overwhelm hires.
Automating sop distribution so it runs itself
Once the core template worked, I started to obsess over cutting myself out of the process. I hooked the SOP template into Airtable so every new hire automatically got a task list. From there, Zapier sent Slack reminders daily until the list was complete. The first version of this Zap was buggy and fired reminder messages twice a day. One hire thought they were in trouble because Slack kept nagging them before they had even started task one. I fixed it by adding a condition that checks for incomplete items instead of sending regardless. Classic “I forgot to add one filter” moment.
I can’t overstate how satisfying it is when the SOP distribution just runs. You open Slack and see the bot say “Welcome, here’s step one,” rather than remembering at midnight that you forgot to add Janet to the group. The work of setting it up is annoying at first, but it pays back faster than most automations I’ve tried (and I try a lot).
Updating the sop template without making chaos
The catch of automation is that your SOP template can drift out of date faster than you expect. For example, Slack renamed channels recently and my template still instructed hires to “Join #general.” They pinged me saying there was no such channel. Oops. This is why I block thirty minutes quarterly on my calendar to click through the SOP steps myself like a fresh hire. It’s boring, but it catches those small changes.
I also built a feedback step into the template where hires can leave comments on confusing steps. Most of the useful edits have come from those notes. Someone once wrote “I don’t know what VPN stands for” on the template and I realized I had written it without explanation. Now the step spells out “download VPN (a tool that secures your internet).” Adding those parenthesis prevents confusion later.
Don’t be afraid to prune steps either. I deleted an entire section on setting up a phone extension once I realized nobody in my company even answers desk phones anymore.
Using sop templates across departments
At first, I thought the onboarding SOP template only applied to the general company setup. Then I realized individual teams wanted their own mini version. Engineering had one with development environment setup steps, while Marketing had one with access to analytics dashboards. I resisted at first because it felt redundant, but honestly it works better when each team owns their slice.
I keep the overall company SOP as the skeleton and then attach sub SOPs by department. This way I know at least the baseline items are consistent, but managers can add their special steps without breaking the whole system. The trick is not to turn it into ten different disconnected documents. Keep them linked in one central master SOP so that when I send the welcome email, there’s a single clean entry point.
I even shared the structure with a friend managing a different company, and they copied the format for their customer support team. They used Trello cards instead of Airtable but the table layout still worked perfectly.
Final takeaways when living with an sop
SOPs are supposed to be boring, but boring is what makes them powerful. You stop relying on random memory or mood and instead just check boxes off. The drama comes not from writing the template but from fixing the little things that break around it. If you remember to phrase tasks specifically, automate handoffs carefully, and prune the nonsense steps, your new hires will at least get the basics in place without flooding you with confused Slack DMs 🙂