I’m not sure how to link to another post on here (I’m using the phone app), but there’s some excellent content in a thread titled “Setting up a HR function for a medium size company”. It’s not exactly the same question, but offers some good ideas.

Hi Kaz, welcome to the communities and very many congratulations on your new role, I'm very pleased for you. Makes a wonderful change to hear someone has successfully found a new job. A couple of things spring to mind although I grant you they may not be entirely along the same lines:

As Maya rightly points out there are a few threads on the first 90/100 days in a job, links as follows for roles other than an HR Manager but they may help with getting you off the starting blocks:
First 100 days as an HR Consultant... - General - HR Strategy and Function - CIPD Community
100 ways to learn - General - Learning and Development - CIPD Community
90 Day plan - Development, CPD and skills - Careers Clinic - CIPD Community
The first 90 days for a new L&D manager - General - Learning and Development - CIPD Community

Also, I came across a book some time ago which might also help - called "The First 90 Days" and written by Michael D. Watkins, printed on Harvard Business Review Press. I don't suggest you buy it as it costs around £20 but there might be a copy in your local library if they have reopened. My local library are open for click and collect, worth investigating. Also you may like to post the same question on the discussion forums for HR Zone, Personnel Today and Training Zone. Good luck and please come back to this forum whenever you need a quick sanity check. :-)

Thank u Maya

Thank u Clare

Congrats on your new role Kaz!

I think the short answer to your ask is that there is no best or standard template to creating your onboarding plan. In addition to the resources suggested here, here are my thoughts...

We must remember HR (at any seniority) coming into a new role/ organisation, we are a new hire too and we still require the same orientation as anyone else in other functions! I sense and in fact experienced firsthand where colleagues/ managers/ leaders assume we can just "plug and play", especially if you held a similar capacity in the past. I'm sure it is true in some cases or when dealing with certain HR responsibilities, but somehow we give people the impression that we would know everything as soon as we start. So my suggestion here is, make sure you receive the same level of resources to orientate yourself as an employee (being the receiver) alongside with your 100 day plan (being the giver).

Another point that I would do is to look at key HR and business cycles e.g. Talent/ performance review, merit/ bonus, benefits review, business activities etc.. You will know that these events must be prioritised if they fall within your 100 days and should there be preparation work prior to key dates, this should help you build a skeleton to your plan. With this in mind, it should also help you to consider who are stakeholders that you should catch up with, to understand who plays what role and how you be collaborating going forward.

Finally, I would also start to list out quick wins and lower priority projects. As you start to settle into the role and organisation, you may discover inefficiency and areas of improvement whether its how your role was performed in the past, HR processes or silos between departments. Some issues you may be able to suggest a solution for right away while some may require more resources or findings over time. You bring a fresh pair of eyes to this organisation. Sharing one of my experience, not long after I joined this organisation as an HRBP, their IT team was constantly escalating (well, complaining) to me that they weren't informed of upcoming new hires and often a new person would show up and laptop/ equipment were unavailable or had to rush setting it up. There was an HR operations team to manage these logistics which they did but somehow there was still a breakdown in communication between the teams. Very quickly I suggested the HR ops to generate a weekly new hire report, sharing the basic info required for IT to set up, this was one of my quick win at the time.

Hope this helps, all the best!

For me, the most important thing to do is get out of the HR Department and speak to as many people as possible to steep yourself in the organisation. I'd want one to ones with heads of departments to find out what their priorities are and what HR can do to help them, but also see if you can sit in on their team meetings so you can get a feel for how the team interacts and what is doing on in their part of the business. You need to be seen to be listening. Alongside that it would be ideal if you could be feeding back to your manager to get their take on your observations. What quick wins may be possible will emerge from you getting to know the business. Don't forget your own manager when you are looking for ways to make a positive impact. There might be some quick wins which would make their life easier too.

Thank u Kitty

Thank u Elizabeth