All about onboarding employees using MyHR
With the digital onboarding feature, MyHR customers can automate onboarding and induction tasks, reducing time and hassle and giving new employees a great experience from the start.
Contents
How do I set up an onboarding template?
How do I start an onboarding plan for a new employee?
How do I mark tasks as completed on an active onboarding plan?
How do I edit an onboarding plan?
How do I close an onboarding plan?
Who can create an onboarding template or plan?
Overview
What is digital onboarding?
An onboarding (or induction) plan guides your new hire through their first phase in the role. MyHR automates task creation, assignment, and completion, so there's no need for a paper trail.
At the business level, start from a best-practice template or build your own task sets, link documents like your handbook, and define timeframes (pre-start, first day, first week). Templates can cover different departments, locations, or roles.
Onboarding plans are now created and attached automatically as soon as you generate and sign a new hire's agreement through Finalise and share, pre-loaded with tax and KiwiSaver forms as default tasks. New hires are notified their plan is available once they sign in and start their guided setup.
You can still assign pre-start tasks and set task ownership across your business, and onboarding reports give you business-wide visibility of every new hire's progress.
Step-by-step instructions
How do I set up an onboarding template?
As an owner or manager with onboarding permission, you can create and customise templates. Start from our best-practice template and adjust it with your own tasks and documents, or build your own from scratch.
See our Guide to creating an onboarding template for the full walkthrough.
How do I start an onboarding plan for a new employee?
Most plans don't need this step. They're created automatically the moment you finalise and share a new hire's agreement, pre-loaded with tax and KiwiSaver forms. Use the steps below only if you want to use a different template, or assign one manually.
- Log into MyHR and select Onboarding
- Select an existing template or create a new one
- Edit or customise the template for your new employee
- Select Start onboarding plan
- Use the Select a person dropdown to find your new employee, then select Start
- The new hire and manager are automatically assigned. Assign other role holders by selecting Select person and their name from the dropdown
- Customise the plan further with tasks or documents for that person
- Select Publish plan
Once published, a welcome email automatically triggers when the employee activates their MyHR account. Task reminders go out to other assigned task owners.
How do I mark tasks as completed on an active onboarding plan?
Once published, employees and managers can view the plan and complete tasks via task reminders or from the person's profile. Both can complete tasks, add comments, and see who completed each task and when.
- Go to People and select the employee's name, or use search and enter the employee's name plus [onboarding]
- Select the task to mark complete or comment on
- A sidebar opens. Add a comment and select Send, or select Mark complete
How do I edit an onboarding plan?
To update a published plan, for example if the employee needs additional training:
- Go to People and select the employee's name
- Select the employee's Onboarding tab
- Select Edit plan to enter editing mode
- Update as needed: edit task details, add new tasks, replace or remove tasks, add or update documents
- Changes save automatically
- Select View to return to the plan and see your updates
Associated reminders update automatically, and reminder emails may re-trigger for task owners.
How do I close an onboarding plan?
Once everything's complete, the manager can close the plan, putting it into view-only mode while keeping all the information for reference.
- Go to People and select the employee's name, or use search and enter the employee's name plus [onboarding]
- Select Close plan in the right-hand menu panel
⚠️ Important: Once you have closed a plan you cannot edit it or mark lists off, so ensure it is up to date and final before closing.
FAQs and troubleshooting
Who can create an onboarding template or plan?
Owner users and manager users with onboarding permission can create templates. Owner users can create plans for anyone; managers with onboarding permission can create plans for people in their own department only.
Owner users can access onboarding reports. Managers with onboarding permission can access reports for their own people only.
The onboarding permission for managers, given alongside department access, covers basic employee information for their department, the onboarding plan, reminders, and reporting. Other permissions can extend this.
How can I see a summary of onboarding tasks completed for an employee or across a department/my organisation?
Two reports track onboarding progress:
- Summary report: shows progress and task ownership across your business
- Task report: focus on specific tasks (like asset supply) to see who's completed them
Support Options
If you need more help, our HR teams are always here for you!
If you have questions, message the MyHR team via the Ask Us chat feature or call us on:
NZ - 0800 69 47 69 (0800 MY HR NZ) or +64 9 887 3345
AU - 02 7908 2240
CA - 1 855 694 7224