A sample page of the actual document
A botched first week is the biggest driver of early leavers, and the items people skip are the ones that carry real penalties: an illegal-working fine of up to £45,000 per worker, a tribunal uplift of two to four weeks' pay for a missing written statement, and ICO exposure for untrained access to personal data. This checklist gets the legal, safety, pay and human steps done in the order you would actually do them, so nobody no-shows, nobody is left without access, and nothing comes back to bite you at probation.
Acas, Planning an Induction Programme and Induction Checklist Template (acas.org.uk/inductions); Employment Rights Act 1996 s.1 (written statement, day-one requirement); Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992 (as amended 2002), HSE guidance on the one-hour-or-more user threshold; Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005; Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 and the Home Office Code of Practice on Preventing Illegal Working, civil penalty rates effective 13 February 2024 (£45,000 first breach / £60,000 repeat, per worker); GOV.UK Holiday Entitlement (5.6 weeks / 28 days for a full-time five-day worker); ICO Accountability Framework, training and awareness; Employment Rights Act 2025 (Royal Assent 18 December 2025): unfair dismissal qualifying period reduced to six months from 1 January 2027, and the duty to notify staff of the right to join a trade union (delivered with the s.1 statement), Government intends to commence October 2026.
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What’s on it
Everything that matters, nothing that does not. Here is the full list, exactly as it appears on the template.
Good to know
Most managers think the right to work check can wait until the end of the first week and that photocopying a passport covers it. Both are wrong: the check must be done before the person starts any work, you must see the original documents in person or use the Home Office online service with a share code (a photocopy alone is not a valid check), and you must record the date of the check on the copy. Since 13 February 2024 the fine for getting it wrong is up to £45,000 per worker for a first breach and £60,000 for a repeat, with no allowance for an honest mistake if you cannot produce a dated copy.
Source: Acas, Planning an Induction Programme and Induction Checklist Template (acas.org.uk/inductions); Employment Rights Act 1996 s.1 (written statement, day-one requirement); Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992 (as amended 2002), HSE guidance on the one-hour-or-more user threshold; Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005; Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 and the Home Office Code of Practice on Preventing Illegal Working, civil penalty rates effective 13 February 2024 (£45,000 first breach / £60,000 repeat, per worker); GOV.UK Holiday Entitlement (5.6 weeks / 28 days for a full-time five-day worker); ICO Accountability Framework, training and awareness; Employment Rights Act 2025 (Royal Assent 18 December 2025): unfair dismissal qualifying period reduced to six months from 1 January 2027, and the duty to notify staff of the right to join a trade union (delivered with the s.1 statement), Government intends to commence October 2026.
Good to know
A botched first week is the biggest driver of early leavers, and the items people skip are the ones that carry real penalties: an illegal-working fine of up to £45,000 per worker, a tribunal uplift of two to four weeks' pay for a missing written statement, and ICO exposure for untrained access to personal data. This checklist gets the legal, safety, pay and human steps done in the order you would actually do them, so nobody no-shows, nobody is left without access, and nothing comes back to bite you at probation.
Most managers think the right to work check can wait until the end of the first week and that photocopying a passport covers it. Both are wrong: the check must be done before the person starts any work, you must see the original documents in person or use the Home Office online service with a share code (a photocopy alone is not a valid check), and you must record the date of the check on the copy. Since 13 February 2024 the fine for getting it wrong is up to £45,000 per worker for a first breach and £60,000 for a repeat, with no allowance for an honest mistake if you cannot produce a dated copy.
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A weak handover is the most common root cause of medication errors, choking on the wrong diet texture, missed post-fall checks, and pressure damage that goes unwatched. A sheet that names the specific person, number, and action passes information the next shift can act on immediately, and it is the record CQC reads back when something goes wrong.
Onboarding done right keeps the business clear of an illegal-working civil penalty (up to £60,000 per worker), of tribunal claims for a missing written statement or unlawful pay deductions, and of the early attrition that hits when someone leaves inside 90 days because day one was a mess. This is the order an onboarder actually works through, from legal must-dos to the things that make a new starter productive.
A new starter induction that is actually done, not just signed off, prevents two kinds of expensive failure: legal exposure (a £45,000 to £60,000 illegal-working penalty, an unfair dismissal or discrimination claim, an ICO breach, an HMRC tax-records penalty) and operational failure (someone who cannot evacuate the building, cannot log in for three days, or hits month five of probation with no documented reviews). Each item below names the document, the number or deadline, and the action, so it can be ticked off and evidenced.