A first-week onboarding checklist for retail staff
A new retail hire's first week sets the tone for everything that follows. This day-by-day checklist covers the practical tasks that actually matter — POS basics, the returns process, store layout, opening and closing duties, and who to ask when something goes wrong — so your new team member hits the floor with confidence.
Before day one
Getting these steps done before your new hire walks in saves their first morning from becoming a paperwork session and lets you get them on to the shop floor sooner.
- Send a welcome message with their start time, where to enter, and who to ask for
- Create their staff profile and assign their role and location in Staff Hub
- Invite them to their first onboarding training module so it is ready to open on day one
- Share the retail onboarding guide with their account so it appears in their training queue
- Add their name to the shift rota and brief whoever is covering the floor that shift
- Prepare their till login credentials and any access cards or codes they will need
- Pin the first announcement they should read — confirm who wrote it and what it covers
Day one
The goal on day one is orientation, not output. Walk them through the space, get them comfortable with the POS, and point them at their first piece of training content.
- Welcome and introductions — team names, departments, who their direct manager is
- Store walk: stockroom, fitting rooms, till points, staff area, emergency exits
- POS basics: process a cash and card sale, apply a discount, look up a product by barcode or SKU
- Returns and exchanges: what the policy is, how to process it on the POS, when to escalate
- Log in to Staff Hub and complete the first onboarding training module
- Read and acknowledge the pinned announcement in their Staff Hub feed
- Introduce them to the opening and closing checklist — observe one handover even if they are not running it yet
Days 2–3
By day two, your new hire has found their feet. Now you can layer in product knowledge, customer interaction, and a first taste of independent responsibility.
- Product knowledge: where key categories live, best-sellers, current promotions
- Customer greeting approach — how your store handles it (scripted, relaxed, etc.)
- Fitting room process: how many items, how items are counted back, who monitors it
- Complete the second assigned training module in Staff Hub
- Shadow a full opening or closing shift, referring to the opening/closing checklist
- Read any outstanding announcements in their Staff Hub feed
- Know who to ask: their buddy or designated first-point-of-contact for shift questions
- Read the most recent manager handover notes so they understand current store priorities
First week
The middle of the first week is where onboarding moves from observation to participation. New hires should be handling real transactions, asking real questions, and working their way through the training queue independently.
- Handle a transaction from greeting to receipt without prompting
- Process a return or exchange independently, checking the policy if needed
- Complete all assigned training modules in Staff Hub for the week
- Raise any product knowledge gaps with their manager before the end-of-week check-in
- Understand stock replenishment basics: where to check stock levels and how to flag a low-stock item
- Know the break schedule and how to flag cover if running late
- Review the retail onboarding guide independently and note any questions
End of week one
A brief end-of-week check-in catches gaps early and signals to your new hire that their experience matters. Keep it to ten minutes.
- Manager check-in: what went well, what felt unclear, any questions outstanding
- Confirm all training modules for the week are marked complete in Staff Hub
- Confirm all required announcements have been read and acknowledged
- Set expectations for week two — what they will start doing independently
- Ask for one thing the store could do to make the next new hire's first week smoother
Make it repeatable
A checklist is only useful if it gets used every time. The most common reason onboarding is inconsistent across retail teams is that the checklist lives in a shared document that nobody updates, or in a manager's head that changes when staff turnover happens.
Save this as a reusable onboarding checklist in Staff Hub so that every new hire gets the same first week regardless of which manager covers the induction. Pair it with a training module covering store-specific processes and a pinned announcement that every new starter is required to read and acknowledge. That three-part combination — checklist, training, announcement — gives you a consistent, verifiable onboarding record without adding manager overhead. See the onboarding guide for how to set this up in Staff Hub.
When you hire again, duplicate the checklist, update any store-specific details, and assign it to the new hire in minutes. The handover notes feature also means outgoing managers can leave a brief for whoever covers induction day — so nothing falls between the cracks when rotas change.
Start onboarding new staff today
Staff Hub keeps onboarding, checklists, and training in one place — free for up to 5 staff. Start free and have your first onboarding module ready before your next hire walks in. Or learn more about how Staff Hub supports retail teams.