Onboarding Atlas · T06 · Onboarding plan
A skills diagnostic, a simulated client case and confirmed client rules before project work.
The intended result
Repeat the client-context task whenever the assignment changes.
The onboarding plan
This is a suggested sequence drawn from the 39-task blueprint. Owners, timing, approvals and completion proof are proposals to confirm locally. Open any task to see its proposed timing, reviewer and evidence of completion.
Phase 01 of 09
Phase 02 of 09
Phase 03 of 09
Phase 04 of 09
Phase 05 of 09
Phase 06 of 09
Phase 07 of 09
Phase 08 of 09
Phase 09 of 09
Learning path
Hire correctly sorts example inputs into allowed and not allowed, and knows where AI use is prohibited.
Blueprint task AI02Coach lists the documents the hire may give an AI tool, each with an owner, access rules and a review date.
Blueprint task AI03Hire uses an approved assistant on a safe, role-specific example with the coach available.
Blueprint task AI04Hire checks AI output against sources, tests, calculations or policy and flags anything unsupported.
Blueprint task AI05Without AI, the hire walks the coach through key decisions and finds a deliberately planted error.
Blueprint task AI06A short exercise routes the hire to foundational practice or a refresher.
Blueprint task CONS01What the evidence says
McKinsey uses a short pre-onboarding diagnostic to route new consultants to a foundations or a refresher track, then trains through daily simulated client cases.
S10In a pre-registered experiment with 758 BCG consultants, GPT-4 improved speed and quality on tasks inside its capability but cut correct answers by 19 percentage points on a task outside it.
R09Completion milestone
Sources and provenance
McKinsey · Company program account · 2025-07-10
A pre-onboarding skills diagnostic routes hires to a foundations or refresher track; daily simulations; a personalized "Day 1 Growth Plan".
Limits: Describes the program design for consultants; reports no outcome data.
Open sourceDell'Acqua et al. / Harvard Business School · Pre-registered field experiment · 2023-09-22
758 BCG consultants: with GPT-4, better and faster on tasks inside the AI frontier, but 19 percentage points less likely to be correct on a task outside it.
Limits: GPT-4 in 2023 on designed tasks; the boundary moves as models change.
Open sourceBuffer · Company process account · 2020-04-10
Hiring manager plus a role buddy (same team) and a culture buddy (another team); 30/60/90-day goals and feedback.
Limits: 2020 account; Buffer describes dropping its earlier 45-day contractor "bootcamp", so do not copy that model.
Open sourceGitLab · Public handbook · Undated / living
Manager assigns a buddy before day one; buddy calls on day one and holds at least two follow-up calls in week two.
Limits: Selection criteria are stated as ideals the handbook says cannot always be met.
Open sourceMicrosoft · Company program account · 2019-06-07 (republished 2021-09-24)
600-employee buddy pilot: the more often buddy and hire met in the first 90 days, the more hires said the buddy helped them become productive quickly.
Limits: Self-reported and correlational; hires who met more often may differ in other ways.
Open sourceMicrosoft Research · Company research guidance · 2021-03-11
Survey and interviews of Microsoft developers onboarded remotely in 2020: a same-team technical mentor, a buddy and a simple first-week pull request.
Limits: 2021 article on pandemic-era remote onboarding; not a current company-wide procedure.
Open sourceMayo Clinic · Public employee portal · Undated / living
Pre-start tasks via a preboarding coordinator, badge photo before day one, on-site orientation only after clearance to start.
Limits: Mayo-specific arrival logistics; not a clinical competency curriculum.
Open sourceMayo Clinic · Public employee portal · Undated / living
Required online modules due within 30 days of start; benefits enrollment within 31 days.
Limits: Mayo-specific deadlines; do not turn them into universal template rules.
Open sourceGitLab · Public handbook · Undated / living
Onboarding runs as a GitLab issue opened at least 4 days before the start date, with a 30-day due date and role-specific sections.
Limits: Living handbook page that changes often; describes intended process, not measured outcomes.
Open sourceAtlassian · Company design case / PDF · 2021-11
A 1.5-day virtual orientation ("Atlassian Welcome"), a 30/60/90-day Trello plan per starter and automated pre-boarding emails.
Limits: Four-page 2021 PDF; the 92% satisfaction figure is Atlassian's own post-onboarding survey.
Open sourceHubSpot · Public preboarding portal · Undated / living
A single pre-arrival landing page with required tasks (I-9, background check), a contact email and culture material.
Limits: Preboarding page for the Americas only; says nothing about the rest of HubSpot's program.
Open sourceZapier · Company process account · 2022-06-17
Month-long program; hires are pushed from Greenhouse to Enboarder automatically and matched with a volunteer "Zap Pal" days before start.
Limits: 2022 account; the tools named may have changed. Time-savings figure is the program manager's own estimate.
Open sourceSalesforce · Company program account · 2024-07-30
A common first week ("Discovering Salesforce") followed by role programs for Sales, Customer Success and Tech & Product; every hire gets a Trail Guide mentor.
Limits: Employer-brand article; the "nearly 90%" readiness figure is Salesforce's own survey.
Open sourceAnthropic · Randomized skills experiment · 2026-01-29
52 mostly junior developers learning a new Python library: the AI group scored 17% lower on a follow-up quiz, with the largest gap on debugging.
Limits: One short learning task; participants who used AI to ask for explanations kept more.
Open sourceGitHub · Product safety documentation · Undated / living
States that agent output must be human-reviewed and tested, and describes permission prompts, firewalls and scoped environments.
Limits: Product documentation; controls differ by product and configuration.
Open sourceEuropean Commission · Regulator guidance · Undated / living
Explains Article 4 of the EU AI Act: providers and deployers must take measures to support AI literacy of staff using AI systems.
Limits: Article 4 was amended by the AI Omnibus (in force 27 July 2026, see R12); confirm applicability with counsel.
Open sourceBrynjolfsson, Li and Raymond / QJE · Peer-reviewed field study · 2025-02-04
AI assistant for 5,179 support agents raised issues resolved per hour by 14% on average and 34% for novice and low-skilled agents.
Limits: Measures productivity in one company's support operation, not an onboarding program.
Open sourceNot found in a document is not proof the organization has no such process. All task schedules, completion rules and blueprints here are original proposed adaptations. Never infer legal duties, actual policies, licensed tools or production permissions.
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