How to Train New Employees (+ Plan for the First 90 Days)

Effective new employee training requires a clear starting point: defining what the business needs this role to achieve, and the timeline for that delivery.

In hypergrowth environments, dedicated time for onboarding is often a luxury — the business may need new hires to contribute immediately.

Meanwhile, in more mature environments, a week-long onboarding program may be the norm.

Regardless of where your organization falls on this spectrum, onboarding plans must accommodate the business reality.

That means designing for flexibility as you guide new hires through three phases:

1. Foundations: core knowledge, processes, and tools
2. Skill building: role training, practice, and application
3. Reinforcement: feedback, coaching, and continuous learning

Step 1. Build strong foundations for new hires

By the end of their first week, new hires should know where key information lives, how to get access to the right tools, and what “normal” looks like on their team.

HR / People Operations teams or L&D program managers often "own" these tasks.

Regardless of your role, focus on a few essentials, like: 

• Partnering with teams like IT, Workplace, Finance, and Legal to define ownership for core workflows and content delivery
• Creating a single onboarding hub where new hires can find all relevant materials
• Designing checkpoints like pulse surveys that confirm readiness (access to necessary tools, completion of required training, a first-week plan)

Foundational information should be easy to find later. People don’t remember where something was said. They remember where they can find it when they need it.

Step 2. Develop skills that drive performance

Once new hires complete onboarding foundations, it is time to progress to skill-building in their role.

This should be hands-on, using real workflows and broken down into smaller pieces.

Each chunk should include a quick explanation, a chance to practice with guidance, and clear feedback.

That way, new hires learn the quality bar while actually getting work done.

People managers should start with role outcomes for the first 90 days:

• What should they be able to do without guessing?
• What does “done” look like for core workflows?
• What’s the quality bar?
• What usually goes wrong in week one?

Then, create training around those experiences:

• A short explanation of the workflow
• One guided attempt on real work
• A review loop (buddy or manager)
• A place to find the answer later

These experiences are the building blocks of a 30–60–90 plan.

30–60–90 day plans

A 30–60–90 day plan is a working outline for a new hire’s first three months.

It turns the role into a ramp, so expectations stay clear while the person is still learning the team, the role, and the company.

It also gives you a shared reference point for check-ins, so progress doesn’t depend on memory.

These plans exist to create alignment. Managers and new hires can point to the same page, review progress in a structured way, and adjust before small misunderstandings turn into bigger issues.

Regular check-ins are part of what makes the plan useful.

A strong 30-60-90 plan makes room for learning how the business works, identifies key stakeholders, and even outlines how success will be measured.

Turn a job description into a 30–60–90 plan

Use the job description as input. When you prompt an LLM with the sample in the accordion below, it will generate a 30–60–90 plan that defines role outcomes, suggests practice tasks, and creates manager checkpoints for review.

Align training to your competency model

If your organization has a skills framework or career ladder, use it to define competence.

If you don’t have either of these, start with a “top tasks” list and a few quality standards per task.

Aligning training with organizational competencies links skill development to career mobility, informs performance assessment (especially during probation periods), and integrates skill-building with company and team training.

Step 3. Reinforce learning so it sticks

Reinforcement is what keeps training from fading once the calendar fills up.

It turns early learning into repeatable habits through feedback, coaching, and a clear place to find answers later.

Without reinforcement, new hires rely on memory and one-off conversations, and performance plateaus early.

One of the fastest ways to reinforce learning is to reduce how often people need to ask the same questions.

When answers live in one place, managers and peers spend less time repeating themselves, and new hires spend less time stuck.

To achieve this, start by identifying the experts within your organization, then figure out how to document their institutional knoweldge.

Capture institutional knowledge with SMEs

You need a small number of SMEs to help you capture the workflows that drive early performance.

When the same questions keep coming up, capture the answers once and make them reusable.

Start with 3–5 workflows that matter in the first few weeks. Assign one SME per workflow and keep the ask specific:

• Confirm the steps and the quality bar
• Share one strong example and one common mistake
• Clarify escalation paths (when to ask, who to ask)

A long walkthrough is difficult to reuse. Record it as short modules instead.

Aim for 3–5 videos that are 3–5 minutes each, with one workflow per video. That covers the repeatable parts without asking SMEs to re-explain them for every cohort.

Then add a live touchpoint for what can’t be captured on video. One 15-minute slot for questions and review is usually enough, and it keeps the SME’s time bounded.

Link each module from your onboarding hub at the moment the workflow shows up, so the new hire finds it right when they need it.

If you want a starting point for documenting workflows, use an SOP video template (like the one below) so new hires can follow the steps and see what “done” looks like.

Documentation reduces repeat questions. A buddy system helps with the parts that still need a human: judgment calls, context, and feedback in the moment.

Run a structured buddy program

A buddy program works when expectations are clear and the cadence is predictable.

Choose buddies who are reliable and strong on team norms. Then set a schedule that new hires can count on: a short daily check-in in week one, followed by a few check-ins in week two.

Be explicit about what the buddy covers. Define where questions should go, how reviews happen, how handoffs work, and who the new hire should meet early.

That clarity prevents “buddy” from turning into an undefined support role.

Teach the business

A new hire can follow steps and still struggle if they don’t understand how the business operates.

Early training should cover who the customer is, how the company makes money, what gets measured, and how decisions get made.

Then connect that context back to the role, so priorities feel grounded rather than abstract.

A sales enablement team, revenue operations, or a similar function often already has a clear version of this story.

Reuse what exists and turn it into a shared module for every new hire.

Ask every new hire to explain, in their own words, how their work connects to one business goal. Review it in a week-two check-in.

How to measure new hire training

Once reinforcement is in motion, you need a way to tell whether it’s working. I recommend a few lightweight signals, followed by milestone check-ins.

Next Steps

Training plans matter when they map to how the business actually works.

Start by making onboarding navigable, then focus skills training on the work you expect people to do; keep learning tied to day-to-day tasks so knowledge actually gets used.

Build feedback loops into the plan from the start. Regular check-ins give you reliable signals across cohorts, and they help new hires improve because they know when they’ll be asked to reflect and adjust.

If you want to see how Synthesia turns workflows into reusable training videos, watch this quick overview.

If you want to try this quickly, start by turning one onboarding workflow into a short video module. Pick the one new hires ask about most, then reuse it across cohorts.