A first week for new team members: a simple onboarding plan

Think back to your own first week in a new business. Chances are you were excited, a bit overwhelmed, and not entirely sure what you were supposed to be doing. Maybe someone gave you a long list. Maybe nobody gave you anything at all.

Either way, the first few weeks shape everything. They decide whether someone feels capable or lost, supported or pressured. And in a relationship-led business, where your team is out there talking to real people, that matters a lot.

Here's what I've learnt, though. Good onboarding actually starts before anyone joins. If someone made their decision based on honest information, the first week is about learning. If they made it based on pressure or big promises, no checklist in the world is going to fix that.

So let's start there.

Before anyone decides: give them the real picture

When someone asks "what would doing this actually involve?", that's a gift. They're telling you exactly what they need to know. So answer that question, fully and honestly.

The things I'd always cover:

• Who you are in all this. Your actual role, and your own relationship with the company.
• What the work really looks like. The day-to-day, not the highlight reel. The conversations, the admin, the quiet weeks.
• The official details for their country. Current requirements, costs, terms and how people are paid, from the company's own sources, not from memory.
• What support they'd get, and just as importantly, what you don't know yet.
• That it's their choice. They can ask more questions, take their time, or say no. All fine.

What I'd leave out: earnings figures, lifestyle promises and success stories you can't stand behind. They might make the conversation feel exciting, but they set people up for disappointment, and they're not honest.

Something like this is a lovely way to open:

I'm happy to explain what the work involves, and help you find the official requirements and terms for your country. What would you need to understand before deciding whether it's for you?

And here's one to never use:

It's basically a job with no risk. Just follow our system and you'll replace your salary.

It makes it sound like employment, it promises results nobody can promise, and it puts pressure on someone to decide quickly. Three problems in two sentences.

After they join: keep the first week small

This is where a lot of teams go wrong. Someone joins, they're keen, and we hand them targets. Message twenty people. Post every day. Book three calls.

I'd do the opposite. Plan for learning, not quotas. Four small tasks, each with someone to help and a simple way to show they've got it:

1. Find the right official source. Where do the current product details, policies and country rules actually live? Once they know where to look, they'll never need to guess.
2. Write a good note. Take a real (or practice) conversation and write down only what happened. What did the person ask? What did they say they didn't want? What was agreed, if anything?
3. Prepare a checked reply. Pick a real customer question and draft an answer, using the official source. Then check it together before it goes anywhere.
4. Explain a next step. What was agreed, by whom, and when. Or simply "nothing agreed", which is a perfectly good answer.

That's it. It doesn't sound like much. But someone who can do those four things well is already ahead of most people, and they'll feel confident rather than out of their depth.

How to coach one task

Coaching doesn't need to be complicated. This is the rhythm I'd use for each of the four tasks:

1. Ask what they want to get better at.
2. Show them once, talking through what you're doing and why.
3. Let them try on their own.
4. Ask them to explain what they did and why.
5. Give one specific correction. Just one.
6. Let them try again.

The "one correction" bit is important. A page of feedback is overwhelming. One clear, kind, specific note is something they'll remember. For example:

The message asks for information, but your note says "meeting agreed". Can you change that line, and show me the words in the message that support it?

See how that teaches the habit, not just the fix? Next time, they'll check their own notes before you do.

A few things that help along the way

• Check in, don't check up. "How's it going, anything confusing?" lands very differently from "how many messages have you sent?"
• Celebrate the right things. A really good customer reply. A note that was spot on. A boundary that was respected.
• Be honest when you don't know. "Good question, let's find the official answer together" builds far more trust than a confident guess.

Where Tandem fits

Tandem's onboarding pathways give each new person a clear first week as a simple checklist, with space for coaching notes and weekly conversation goals for the team. It's a starting point for the conversation with their coach, not a replacement for your company's official requirements. The real onboarding still happens between two people.

Examples use made-up people. Nothing here is legal, financial or medical advice.