A 30-60-90 day plan outlines the first 90 days of a new team member’s employment and familiarizes them with company policies, team work, and goals. This action plan helps your team members check off essential items as they adjust to their new work environment. In this piece, we’ll outline the key components of a 30-60-90 day plan and explain why having one is beneficial.
It’s universally acknowledged that the first 90 days at any company can be intimidating. This isn’t any one person or program’s fault, either. There’s a lot for your new team members to learn—including using different tools, navigating team norms, and adjusting their own expectations. But when you provide new hires with guidance and expectations, you empower them to hit the ground running from day one.
Read: Employee handbook: How to inform and inspire your team (with examples)A 30-60-90 day plan is a new hire’s guide through the onboarding process. This action plan helps your team members set achievable goals and check off essential items as they acclimate to their new role. In this piece, we’ll outline the key components of a 30-60-90 day plan and explain why having one is beneficial.
A 30-60-90 day plan is an outline of a new hire’s first 90 days on your team. It lays out exactly what your new employee should accomplish, from their first week to the end of their third month in a new job. The goal of a 30-60-90 day plan is to give team members a concrete plan for getting up to speed and accomplishing their learning goals. It helps ensure every new hire feels welcomed into the company and understands the responsibilities of their role.
30-60-90 day plans often include the following milestones for each month of onboarding:
1–30 days: The first month involves intensive training for the employee’s new position. This is when the new hire learns as much as possible about company policies, your company’s products, team structure, and job responsibilities.
31–60 days: The second month of employment is the new hire’s opportunity to put what they’ve learned into practice by taking on new tasks. This is a key learning period, so it’s ok if your direct reports make mistakes as they get familiar with how things are done.
61–90 days: The third month of employment is when the new hire starts mastering the skills of their job. This means your employee can now fully meet job expectations and start achieving long-term performance goals.
A 30-60-90 day plan may have similar sections for all new hires, such as company policies and resources. That said, you should also tailor many parts of the plan to fit each individual’s specific role and responsibilities.
Create a 30-60-90 day templateCreating a 30-60-90 day plan helps improve your onboarding process and set new employees up for success. Onboarding can make or break someone’s experience at a new company, so it’s worth investing in. In fact, research shows that a strong onboarding process can improve employee retention by 82% and productivity by over 70%.
With a 30-60-90 day plan, you can:
Set goals and create clear expectations for an employee’s first three months on the job.
Space out training sessions and introductions so new hires don’t feel overwhelmed.
Ensure new team members have the knowledge, resources, and skills they need to be successful in their new role.
Take time to communicate your core company values.
Build trust with effective feedback throughout the onboarding process.
Proactively creating a 30-60-90 day plan can also benefit your hiring process and interview process. Candidates often want to know what their first few months on the job will look like. Having a plan already in place helps hiring managers and recruiters paint a concrete picture for applicants during job interviews.
Your new hire’s focus in the first 90 days should be to integrate into company culture and master their job description. While there’s time during this initial period for new hires to help with tasks outside of onboarding, your new team members’ initial objectives should revolve around basic acclimation.
Some accomplishments you may ask your new hire to achieve in their first 90 days include:
Learn the company’s mission
Know the organizational structure, including management roles and fellow team members
Understand the responsibilities outlined in the job description
Understand the project roadmap from start to finish
Set short-term objectives toward long-term goals
You should hold a performance review at the end of a new hire’s first 90 days to assess their progress. During this time, you can offer constructive feedback about what they’ve accomplished and how they can continue to improve in their role.
Typically, you’ll write a 30-60-90 day plan before your new hire onboards or immediately after they begin their job. As a result, you probably don’t know a lot about your new hire’s personality or strengths. Instead of making your 30-60-90 day plan personal to the team member’s abilities, use your expectations for what you want them to become in their new role to customize each plan.
Create a 30-60-90 day templateOnce you’ve hired someone new, start your 30-60-90 day plan by looking at the big picture and assessing how your new hire fits into that picture. Ask yourself any questions that come to mind about the job role, the onboarding process, and the team. Some questions to begin brainstorming include:
What need do you hope for this person to fill?
What specific problem are you bringing this person in to solve?
What should this person know in order to be successful?
What will the new hire’s daily responsibilities be?
How will the new hire take part in project development?
Ultimately, your 30-60-90 day plan will give your new hire a clear idea of what the first three months will look like. Answering these questions early sets them up for success and helps them build their skills for the role.
Your 30-60-90 day plan isn’t a day-to-day list of activities your new hire will be working on. Rather, your goal is to give your new hire an overview of their purpose within the company.
You should also keep in mind when you create your 30-60-90 day plan that a new team member can only do and learn so much in their first few months of employment. While you may have some dire needs to address, try not to throw too much on your new hire’s plate too fast.
Consider what a reasonable workload should be and minimize that workload for at least the first 30 days. Expect there to be a learning curve. Then, if you find that the team member catches up quickly, you can add work to their plate as appropriate.
Read: Collaboration in the workplace: 11 ways to boost your team’s performanceAccording to a 2014 study by BambooHR, the average company loses one-sixth of their new hires each month for the first three months. Setting concrete goals during onboarding can boost retention, especially if those goals are SMART—specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound. SMART goals help clarify expectations and give team members clear stepping stones to follow. That way, new hires are less likely to feel overwhelmed or unengaged.
The specific goal and success metrics you set for your new hire will depend on their particular role and level within the company. Check out some example 90-day SMART goals for different employee positions:
Writer: Successfully publish three articles for one of our clients, which includes taking each article through the entire publishing process from QA to internal edits, client edits, and final edits.
Customer support: Work with team members to close 30 tickets, which includes learning the internal computer system and solving an array of unexpected tech issues.
Agency: Collaborate with stakeholders to write one promotional piece. Then promote the piece to bloggers and successfully get it published on at least three websites relevant to the client.
While the new hire’s first 90 days should focus on helping them get comfortable in their new role, adding measurable goals to their action plan can give them a project to work on so they don’t feel like their only purpose is to shadow others.
A 30-60-90 day plan isn’t a document you’ll hand over to your new hire and then simply send them on their way to complete their duties. This document should be a reference for your new hire while they collaborate with you and other team members to accomplish tasks.
When writing your plan, assign the new hire a mentor to give your new hire any advice or guidance they might need. This person will be their go-to guide during the first few weeks for any questions. A good mentor can help orient your new hire so they don’t feel so overwhelmed by their new work environment.
Make sure to set your new hire up with a mentor who isn’t their manager. That way, they have someone they can turn to with questions about team synergy and team norms. As their manager, you can focus on providing bigger picture guidance about long-term goals and team collaboration best practices.
An important thing to remember when creating a 30-60-90 day plan is to stay flexible. Even if you feel like your plan outlines exactly what you hope for your new hire to accomplish, there’s no guarantee that the first 90 days will go as expected.
For example, another team may need help from your new hire a week into their employment, which can derail the SMART goals you initially set for them. It’s also possible that your new hire will learn at a slower or faster pace than you expected. When you understand that the plan is an outline and not a schedule, you’ll feel better about the work you’ve put into it.
The contents of a 30-60-90 day plan are unique to the team member joining your organization, but the framework of the plan should look similar.
Create a 30-60-90 day templateThe essential components of a 30-60-90 day plan include:
Company mission: Briefly state your company’s mission at the top of the 30-60-90 day plan to give your new hire an idea of what your company stands for.
Guiding points: Guiding points may include information about your company culture and elaborate on your business’ core values. For example, these points may include things like: “Ask questions… Value relationships… Have a team mindset… Put your health first…”
Meet the team: In this section, include pictures and blurbs of the people your new hire will work with closely. This can be a good reference for the new hire as they try to learn names and team roles.
First day overview: The first day overview is the only section of the 30-60-90 day plan that lists out a detailed schedule for the new hire. While this schedule may change, do your best to let your new hire know what to expect on their first day of work, including log-in information or how to set up their email and phone voicemail. That way, they don’t come in feeling lost and unsure about what to do or where to go.
Top priorities: In the top priorities section of the plan, include an overview of the new hire’s job responsibilities and any needs you hope for them to fill in their new role.
SMART goals: As mentioned above, the SMART goals you list in the 30-60-90 day plan should be measurable, job-related goals you hope the new hire will achieve within their first 90 days.
Resources: In the resources section, list links to the company handbook, job description, team directory, and other relevant resources. You can add any resources to this section that you think the team member will find useful as they familiarize themselves with the company and the job.
Not sure where to start? Check out our example 30-60-90 day plan template below for inspiration on how to optimize your onboarding process.
Use this 30-60-90 day outline as a framework to build and customize a plan that works for each new hire that you onboard.
Printouts and documents quickly become out of date. Keep your onboarding process flexible by creating your 30-60-90 day plan with project management software. Once you share the plan, you can easily monitor your new hire’s progress—plus assign day-to-day action items to keep things on track.
Create a 30-60-90 day templateThose first few months of a new employee’s journey or a shift in an existing employee’s focus can strongly impact their level of engagement, productivity and overall success in their work.
That’s why a structured employee onboarding framework is so critical – it’s more important than onboarding itself.
That’s the 30-60-90 day onboarding framework for you – it’s to provide a consistent, uniform and thorough onboarding experience. It clearly outlines the activities, resources, and expectations for those first three months of an employee’s journey, setting them up for success in their role.
The benefits for the employee are clear – they reach higher productivity in a shorter time (in other words, their ‘time to ramp’ is shorter).
They’re more vividly engaged, they understand what’s expected of them, and they know how to do the work.
For the organization, this results in greater average revenue per employee, lower turnover, and a stronger reputation as an employer that believes in developing their people.
This 30-60-90 day onboarding blueprint is structured in three phases with end goals for each: at the 30-day mark, you’ve set a foundation for that employee.
By the 60-day mark, you’re establishing a clear momentum for the employee to thrive.
And, finally, at the 90-day mark, you’re ensuring that this fully onboarded employee is ready to work autonomously and independently because they’ve learned what they need to know to succeed in their role.
Let’s go into these three stages in depth.
30-day plan: the foundationWe’ll start the 30-60-90 onboarding plan with this famous adage: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”
It’s a given that you’ll be spending a fair bit of time during the first 30 days giving job-specific training to your new starters. But equally, a key focus should be on embedding them into the company culture and helping them build connections.
Here are some ideas to get started:
1. Designate a work ‘buddy’This should be someone from the team who isn’t their manager. They can be the go-to person who shows them the ropes and gives advice. As this person will be a peer, rather than a manager, they’ll probably have gone through the same experience themselves so can empathize.
Link up new starters who are in a similar boat to each other. For example, you could set up a dedicated Slack or Teams channel which joiners are part of for their first few weeks.
2. Organize a team lunchIdeally this can be done together in the same place, but if it’s not possible, you can still do it virtually. Why not send the new starter a voucher for them to order the meal of their choice?
Regardless, you should send them a small reward and note of appreciation after their first week – it’s a nice gesture which will put a smile on their face!
3. Set up casual meetingsArrange “get to know” meetings with people the new starter will be working closely with. This is not a work-related induction, but more of a social meeting to break the ice and find out about each other. These meetings should be quite casual and don’t need any sort of agenda beforehand.
You can group people together – for example, instead of meeting all the web developers individually, they can be part of the same meeting. At the same time, try to keep the number of people in these chats quite small, perhaps to a maximum of four or five. Any more can make them feel daunting, which is the opposite of what you’re trying to achieve!
Basically, it should feel more like a coffee date, and less like you’re being grilled on a reality show!
4. Set up daily syncsAt this stage, managers should have a quick 10-minute catch-up with the employee at the end of each day, just to see how they’re getting on. Meeting lots of different people can be a little overwhelming, so having a regular chat with the same person each day adds a sense of routine.
5. Keep a finger on their pulseOne constant throughout the 30-60-90 day onboarding plan (and beyond) is wellbeing, so ensure managers are still checking in regularly. Pay particular attention to signs of burnout – it’s not uncommon for employees to push themselves extra hard during these opening few weeks.
6. Ensure a solid training planAs mentioned earlier, training is very important during this stage of the 90 days plan. If you aren’t giving people the tools they need to be successful, it won’t work out for you or them. Things which should be included within the training plan are:
A quick word on those individual KPIs: ensure you are completely clear on what these are – the employee needs to know three things, exactly:
Setting expectations properly reduces the chances of confusion later on down the line.
8. Make it a two-way streetWhen it comes to training, try to make this as interactive as possible. People should be able to ask questions and even make suggestions. When training them for the tasks they’ll be doing, incorporate a mix of different learning methods. There may be some things which they can study and practice in their own time, whereas others may require them to learn on the job or be shown step by step.
If you have an online L&D program in place, select the courses which you think will be most relevant to their job. This tailors their training and saves them from having to scroll through lots of different ones.
9. Keep it fun and engaging!As for the actual work your new starter will be doing, this can vary based on the role and level of seniority. Try to make it engaging though – enthusiasm levels are normally super high at this stage, so you want to tap into this as much as possible. Perhaps you could set them a list of things to do each week and turn it into a fun challenge with points and prizes?
60-day plan: the momentumNow you’re at one month in the onboarding plan. Your employee should be mostly familiarized with their work and the company’s processes, but that’s just the first step to success. Here’s what you need to think about in the second month of the 30-60-90 day onboarding plan.
1. Maintain a feedback loopFeedback is crucial, and it’s a very important way to keep the new starter engaged and focused. Managers should give this on each piece of work. Remember it’s still early days, so don’t expect perfection.
At the same time, employees appreciate honesty so give them constructive feedback, and ask for theirs as well. Is there anything they think should have been done differently in the opening weeks?
2. Check on goal progressionIt’s also a good time for managers and employees to have an honest discussion about the goals that were set early on. Does anything need to change? Does the employee feel like there are more things they could take on? Either way, do what you did the first time and communicate clearly.
3. Celebrate the small ‘wins’It’s also important that people feel appreciated. Make sure you celebrate the small successes. If they work in Customer Service, make a big deal of the first ticket they resolve. If they’re in Marketing, recognise them for that first blog they wrote.
This could be a formal shoutout on the recognition platform you use, or even just a round of applause during your end of week wrap-up.
Try and link these recognitions to your company values – this is a great way to remind the employee what you stand for. Try to back the recognitions up with a reward as well. By getting a reward for displaying the right behaviors or for good work, it gives them a morale boost and a sense of gratitude.
You’re now building on the learningRemember, learning doesn’t just stop after day 30 – but now it continues with the act of building. This is where you trust them to do more independent work and go deeper into their responsibilities. Normally, there are two routes you can take.
If there’s a specific project that was earmarked for them before they joined, allow them to run with this.
If the type of work they do is naturally quite repetitive – perhaps they work on the tills at a shop – ask them to come up with ideas to improve some aspect of what you do. This is a great way to keep them engaged and shows that you see them as a valuable part of the business. It also usually involves them needing to collaborate with other departments, which brings its own benefits in terms of relationship building.
Whichever one of the two routes you choose, ask them to follow the Plan, Develop, Implement model. Here’s a quick breakdown.
PlanThis is where the employee does their research, asks the questions they think are relevant, and puts together a strategy for what they think needs to be done. Give them the time, space and tools to do this.
DevelopOnce the plan has been put together, the employee uses it to develop a solution. For example, if they’re in Business Development, maybe they have a better way to reach out to prospects. They can get these new ideas together and test them internally.
ImplementNow the employee takes the results from their tests and puts them into practice. This is where they’ll feel like they’re doing what they were brought in to do, and managers will be able to judge how far along they are.
At all times, managers should ensure help is available if needed – but allow the employee to take control.
Now, we mentioned how this type of task allows employees to build relationships with others in the company. But there’s other ways to do this as well, for example organizing social events. For example, Perkbox has monthly ‘Meet ‘n’ Greet’ events which are an opportunity for new starters to meet with people in social settings.
90-day plan: the independenceThis last phase of the 30-60-90 day onboarding plan should help employees feel like they’re a fully-fledged part of the business. All being well, by the end of this period, they should have less of a ‘new starter’ feeling.
The employee should by now be nicely bedded in from a cultural point of view. This doesn’t necessarily mean they run to the karaoke machine on nights out – but they should feel comfortable with their colleagues. If they still seem a little uncomfortable, it’s the manager’s job to get to the bottom of this.
1. Assign full ownership and independenceA core measure of success at the 90-day stage is whether or not you’re able to grant full ownership to the employee. You should be able to confidently assign them projects without walking them through the steps of how to see it through to completion.
At the 90-day mark, that employee is equipped with the knowledge – and experience – to independently make decisions to move the project forward. They no longer will need to ‘check in’ with their manager or seek approval or validation before moving forward.
Of course, there’s always that question of making a mistake – can you trust your employee to do the right thing to ensure success? Well, that’s what onboarding is for in the first place – when you can trust your employees, you’ve onboarded them successfully.
2. Conduct a performance reviewWhat else? Performance reviews. While you no longer require the employee to be checking in with you or other colleagues to get a job done, you do check in with them at the end in the performance review.
This is your opportunity to go through their performance, both in the first 90 days and in the long-term, and identify areas where they can do better and shine a light on areas where they’ve done well. In fact, it’s not simply a review – think of it as a refinement.
3. Ask them about their onboarding experienceA little different from the performance review is a simple check-in with HR. Ask the employee how they’ve found the onboarding process to date. Is there anything they feel should’ve been done differently?
Not only does this help you improve the process for the future, but it shows the employee you take their opinions seriously.
4. Identify their passions – and support themHopefully by now they can also let some of their other passions shine through. For example, do you have any Employee Resource Groups or social clubs that appeal to them? Send a reminder of these and encourage them to put themselves forward if they want.
Often, people who join up with these things early on in their time at a company, develop really strong connections with colleagues. This can only be a good thing from a retention point of view!
Those first three months are key for successThose first 90 days of an employee’s journey within an organization, a new strategy, a different process, etc., sets the tone for their entire tenure going forward. A bad onboarding plan has obvious adverse effects – someone who isn’t properly familiarized with their roles won’t be able to rise to expectations. They get frustrated, demoralized, and worst of all, toxic. Cue ‘quiet quitting’, costly turnovers, and overall disenchantment.
Think of it as keeping a car properly maintained. When every part of the car is well-maintained, the engine is tuned regularly, the tires are leveled, the exterior is washed, the interior deep-cleaned, then the car lasts longer and performs better.
Your organization is your ‘car’ – keep it attuned, updated and optimized with a well-structured, 30-60-90 day onboarding plan for every step of the way, and it’ll pay dividends for you in the long run.