How to create a 30/60/90 day plan for your new hire

Every new hire should be presented with a detailed onboarding plan for their first few weeks and months. Learn how to create one and plan to review it with your new hire in their first week.

Creating a 30/60/90 day plan provides context and sets expectations. This helps your new hire ramp up more quickly and understand how their role fits into current projects and goals. 

While every 30/60/90 day plan will look slightly different, it should generally help you and your new hire accomplish three things: 

1. Identify objectives for your new hire
2. Map those objectives to specific outcomes or tasks
3. Establish “deadlines” for your goals

You might even decide that you want to shorten these increments to 20/40/60 days in order to check in with your new hire more frequently. This can be helpful in a fast-paced environment. Whatever you decide, make sure the cadence is clear and you’re checking in regularly and reviewing progress at milestones. 

Writing your new hire’s 30/60/90 day plan

Use our provided 30/60/90 day new hire plan template for ease. 

Here’s what you’ll find in the document: 

• Guidance on how to establish your objectives, tasks, and deadlines for each phase.
• Customizable charts to map out your timeline.
• Examples of learning objectives and tasks. 

Day 1 to 30: Learning

A new hire’s first 30 days should be focused on learning the ropes. Avoid the temptation to dive right into projects. Instead, give them the time and space to absorb the information they need to be successful. So, what should they be learning? 

It’s a good goal to get familiar with the company’s culture, mission, products, and customers. It’s also a great time for your new hire to start building relationships with team members—as well as other people you may end up collaborating with—and learn about the projects they’re working on.

Day 31 to 60: Contributing

Start including some work tasks in this phase of the plan. Your new hire will get more comfortable and begin contributing to the team. Keep in mind they will still be onboarding, so you’ll want to include some learning goals as well. The focus of this period is to do actual work tasks, though your new hire should still be setting aside time to continue learning. 

Day 61 to 90: Owning 

The final phase of the 30/60/90 day plan is focused on ownership. Expect your new hire to own their work with more independence, though of course they will likely still have questions for you. As a manager you will be less prescriptive during this phase and your new hire will become more proactive and involved with the company.

Set aside time now, or make time in the future, to create your new hire’s 30/60/90 day plan using the provided template.