In his latest blog entry, WSB's founder Sergey went into detail about the hardships our small team had to go through during its expansion. We took some lumps, but we also learned a lot. We have also created a detailed onboarding guide which covers the first work week of our new employee, and we would like to share it with you! To everyone who prefers to learn from the mistakes of others - enjoy.

3 days before starting work

1. Learn the full name and address of the employee

2. Create a corporate email address for the employee (GSuite, use the following format: firstname.lastname@wsb).

3. Add the employee to:

- Slack

- Notion

- Trello

4. Create an employee card in Notion in Employees section

5. Record the date of start of work and the wage rate in the payroll record

Use Trello card template:

1 day before starting work

1. Make sure that the employee has access to all of the required tools and can start work

2. Create a card for the employee’s first work day based on the Trello template:

First day at work

Create a check list for the employee based on the template:

  1. Brief the employee and explain to them how we use:
    1. Notion
    2. Trello
    3. Slack
    4. Google Drive
  2. Inform the employee about:
    1. Our regular team meetings
    2. Holiday pay, holidays, sick leave
    3. Wage payment dates
  3. The employee has to:
    1. Add their photo to Slack/Google Suite
    2. Fill out their card based on a template
    3. Provide details for wage payouts
  4. Tell the employee about the history, current state and future of the company
  5. Explain basic work principles, provide examples
  6. Give the employee access to tools required for their work
    1. Gitlab
    2. AmoCRM
    3. HelpScout
  7. At 13:00, introduce them to the team
  8. At 17:30 hold a quick meeting and:
    1. Do a recap of the first day
    2. Answer any of the employee’s questions
    3. Figure out expectations for their first week at work

Second day at work

At 17:30 hold a quick meeting, do a recap of the second day and answer any questions

Fifth day at work

  1. Do a recap of the first work week

2.  Get feedback

3.  Figure out a plan for the next three weeks

Note: We use a pretty standard set of instruments in our work. We use Notion as a database for our company, Trello to track tasks and create roadmaps, and Slack and Zoom for communication. We are just describing our own experience, and you can use different instruments for the same tasks.