Tips to onboard team members

On this page

• Manage information gathering
• Create onboarding documents
• Set up employee checklists
• Store onboarding materials in one place
• Create a central training website
• Create impactful training presentations
• Train new employees anytime, anywhere
• Hold office hours or mentoring workshops
• Set up a welcome event for new team members

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Manage information gathering

Cut down on paperwork by moving all your administrative onboarding processes online. With Google Forms, you can create electronic forms to gather new employee information, collect policy-acknowledgement signatures, and more—in just minutes. These forms are easy to update and can be accessed from kiosks, computers, or mobile devices.

Learn how

1. Go to Google Forms.
2. Click Blank .
3. A new form will open.

Get started with Google Forms

 

Create onboarding documents

Onboarding new team members requires a large amount of content, including health and safety procedures, professional employment contracts, employee handbooks, and so on. Use Google Docs with your team to create content at the same time, provide specific feedback through real-time comments, and produce documents that capture everyone’s perspective. If your organization has Gemini for Google Workspace, use Gemini in Docs to create starting points for your drafts.

Learn how

Create & name your document

1. On your computer, open a Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms or Vids  home screen.
2. Click Create .

You can also:

• Create a file from template
• Use a template in Google Vids

At the top of the page, click Untitled document and enter a new title.

Get started with Google Docs

Write or rewrite with Gemini

1. On your computer, open a document from Google Docs.
2. At the top right, click Ask Gemini .
3. On the side panel, select a prompt or create your own.
4. Press Enter.
5. Generate text and refine it.
   • Examples:
     • “Write an announcement email about a new feature.”
     • “Make the announcement more fun.”
6. You can also:
   • Add the text to your document: Click Insert .
   • Find a different version: Click Retry .
   • Send feedback about the suggested text: Click Good suggestion or Bad suggestion .

Get started with Google Docs

 

Set up employee checklists

Create checklists in Google Sheets that include all the tasks new employees need to get up to speed, such as software training, company policy reviews, and more. If employees have a question about a task, they can insert a comment in the spreadsheet and get instant feedback.

Learn how

Insert checkboxes

1. On your computer, open a spreadsheet in Google Sheets.
2. Select the cells you want to have checkboxes.
3. In the menu at the top, click Insert Checkbox.
4. To remove checkboxes, select the checkboxes you want to remove and press Delete.

Note: You can use checkboxes with charts, filters, pivot tables, and functions.

Add custom checkbox values

You can add checkboxes with custom values. For example, the custom checked value could be "Yes," and the unchecked value could be "No."

1. On your computer, open a spreadsheet in Google Sheets.
2. Select the cells you want to have checkboxes.
3. In the menu at the top, click Data Data validation.
4. Next to "Criteria," choose Checkbox.
5. Click Use custom cell values.
6. Next to "Checked," enter a value.
7. Optional: Next to "Unchecked," enter a value.
8. Click Save.

 

Store onboarding materials in one place

Store all your onboarding materials in a shared drive and share it with your organization and any new employees. Onboarding staff can edit, comment, or view the materials from any device, and other team members can see the changes and add feedback in real time. Updates are automatically pushed out to everyone immediately, so the resources stay up to date and consistent for incoming employees.

Learn how

Create a shared drive

1. On your computer, go to drive.google.com.
2. On the left, click Shared drives.
3. At the top left, click New.
4. Enter a name for the shared drive.
5. Click Create.

 

Create a central training website

New employees often get lost in large or distributed companies, which is why most turnover occurs within the first few months of employment. Create a Google Sites webpage with all your onboarding and training resources so they can quickly get up to speed and easily find important reference materials in one place.

Learn how

Create & name your site

1. Choose an option:

   • In Sites, at the top, click Blank or Template gallery and select a template.
   • In Drive, click New MoreGoogle Sites.
2. At the top left, enter a document name for your site and press Enter.

 

Create impactful training presentations

Want to create training modules for new team members? Need to prepare a presentation for new employee orientations? Use Google Slides to turn your key messages and information into an impactful training program. Or, use Google Vids to create training videos. Vids can generate videos based on your prompts and any files you add. You can even record your own clips and audio narration to add to the video.

Learn how

Create & name your presentation

1. On your computer, open Google Slides .
2. At the top, click Blank presentation. 
3. At the top, click Untitled presentation and enter a new title.

Create a video with Vids

1. On your computer, open Google Vids.
2. Choose an option:
   • Help Me Create: Create a video with AI in Google Vids. 
   • Select a template: Build your video based on a template that you select. 
   • Start with a recording: Build your video with a video, audio, or screen recording. 
   • Upload media: Build your video by recording yourself (audio narration or a full video recording), your computer screen, or both. 

Get started with Google Vids

 

Train new employees anytime, anywhere

Have a distributed workforce that needs timely training? Want to reduce onsite training costs? With YouTube Live, you can easily deliver a live talk to new staff members and hold a Q&A session. Use Google Meet to conduct virtual training classes across the globe while saving time and travel costs. Share the recording and other materials in Drive or in a shared drive.

Learn how

Start a meeting from Meet

1. ​Go to Google Meet.
2. Click New Meeting.
3. Select an option:
   • Create a meeting for later:
     • To share the meeting details for a future meeting, copy the meeting link and share with participants.
     • To directly start the meeting with this link, paste the link into a browser; or enter the link into the “Enter a code or link” field click Join.
   • Start an instant meeting: Create a new meeting and join the meeting directly. 
   • Schedule in Google Calendar: To schedule a meeting, you’re directed to Google Calendar.

Tip: Google Workspace Essentials users can't schedule a meeting in Google Calendar.

Record a meeting to share later

1. On your computer, in Google Meet, click Start or Join.
2. At the bottom right, click Activities Recording.
   • To record the meeting captions, select a language.
   • In some cases, if the recording is played on Google Drive, the recording file might be ready a few hours before the captions are available.
3. Click Start recording.
4. In the pop-up screen, click Start.
5. Wait for the recording to start. Participants get a notification when the recording starts or stops.
   • Meetings can only be recorded for a total of 8 hours, then the recording stops automatically.
6. To stop a recording, click Activities Recording Stop recording.
7. In the pop-up screen, click Stop recording.
   • Tip: The recording stops automatically when everyone leaves the meeting.

An email with the recording link is sent to the meeting organizer and the person who started the recording.

The recording is saved to the meeting organizer’s My Drive > Meet Recordings folder.

For meetings created through:

• Google Calendar: The meeting organizer is the person who creates the meeting event on Google Calendar.
• The Google Meet homepage or another product such as Gmail: The meeting organizer is the person who launches the meeting or generates the code.

 

Hold office hours or mentoring workshops

Important: Appointment schedules replace appointment slots. Learn more about the changes to appointment slots.

Even with training programs in place, new employees often have a lot of questions when they get started—help them settle in faster with office hours or one-to-one mentoring workshops. You can better manage your availability in Google Calendar with appointment scheduling.

With appointment schedules, you can:

• Create and share booking pages so people can book time with you.
• View booked appointments alongside your schedule in Calendar.

Learn how

Create an appointment schedule

Important: To create an appointment schedule on a secondary calendar or add co-hosts to an appointment schedule, you need an eligible Google Workspace subscription. Learn more about premium features for appointment schedules.

1. On a computer, open Google Calendar.
2. At the top left, click Create .
3. Click Appointment schedule.
4. Enter a title.
   • The title is visible to anyone who has the link to your booking page.
   • The title appears on your calendar for the schedule and incoming bookings.
5. To set an appointment duration, click the down arrow .
   • Appointments must be at least 5 minutes long.
6. Set the date, time, and time zone of your appointments.
   • You can set up a one-time or recurring appointment schedule.
   • Tip: To add multiple time slots for a single day, click Add another period to this day .
7. Choose settings for your appointment availability, such as your scheduling window or days when you won't be available. Learn about customizing your availability.
8. Choose a primary or secondary calendar where you want to add your appointment schedule.

   • Tips:

     • Once you create an appointment schedule, you can't edit it to be on a different primary or secondary calendar.

     • Anyone with edit permission to a secondary or primary calendar can make changes to the schedule and view incoming bookings. Learn more about access permissions.

9. Optional: To avoid conflicts for events created or accepted on primary or secondary calendars, under "Calendars," select Check calendars for availability. Then, select all calendars for which you don't want bookable times to be available during any created or accepted events.
   • Important: Each appointment slot on a booking page can only be booked once even with this feature turned off.
10. To add co-hosts to the appointment, enter the co-host's names or email addresses.

    •  You can also add Google Groups directly.

11. Click Next.

Get started with Google Calendar

 

Set up a welcome event for new team members

Help new employees feel like part of the team by organizing a welcome event in Calendar. Send a team-wide invite along with a welcome note introducing new employees and the venue information. Keep your event on track by collecting responses and sending out reminders.

Learn how

Schedule an event and & guests

1. On your computer, open Google Calendar.
2. Optional: If you want to add guests to your event, on the left click Search for people and start typing the names of your guests.
3. Click any time on the calendar that doesn't already have an event scheduled.
4. Add a title to the event, and any event details.
5. Click Save.

Tip: To create a longer event, drag your mouse down the page while you're selecting the time.

 

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