30-60-90 Day Plan

What is a 30-60-90 day plan?

You are crucial in ensuring that recent hires and current and promoted workers are set up for success as HR professionals. A well-crafted 30-60-90 day plan, sometimes referred to as a three-month plan, can assist newly hired staff members and promoted staff members in adjusting to their new positions and workplace. It should be essential to the onboarding process since it offers structure and guidance regarding the company’s culture, procedures, and expectations.

HR professionals are entrusted with onboarding new workers as quickly as possible across industries and worldwide. The speed at which a person contributes to the team is influenced by how successfully they are onboarded.

HR experts can facilitate a smooth onboarding process by providing recruits and their managers with a 30-60-90 day plan that outlines the aims and objectives of the new employee during the first ninety days of their employment. It provides clear guidelines, synchronizes work with organizational objectives, and allows employees to be as productive as possible.

30-60-90 day plans are typically meant for new hires. However, they may also be helpful for staff members who have been promoted to new positions or even for teams when a new project is started.

The role of HR in the 30-60-90 day plan:

• Assisting staff members in seeing how they connect daily duties to the overarching work purpose and match their goals and efforts to the business.
• Collaborating with managers and staff to develop a well-defined plan based on quantifiable and precise objectives.
• Monitoring the plan’s implementation to ensure that important KPIs are satisfied regularly.

When a 30-60-90 day plan should be used

Interviews in a 30-60-90 day plan 

During an interview, introducing the 30-60-90-day plan can be a wonderful way to gauge a candidate’s level of readiness, strategic thinking, goal setting, and achievement abilities. Candidates can demonstrate their expertise in the role, industry, and company by presenting a well-structured 30-60-90 day plan. It offers insightful information about what they anticipate contributing within the first three months and what they want to see in an onboarding process.

Engaging in a conversation about the 30-60-90 day plan helps the hiring manager or recruiter assess the candidate’s cognitive style and fit with the organization’s goals. You’ll rapidly be able to talk more about the candidate’s ability to create reasonable goals and prioritize their duties.

The 30-60-90-day plan for new hires

Effective onboarding procedures are important. They are so important that 69% of workers are more inclined to stay with a company for three years or longer if they had a positive onboarding experience.

When a worker is new to a job or industry, and you anticipate changes in the work environment or industry and want to make sure your new hires are prepared for these challenges, a 30-60-90 day plan might be helpful.

For new hires, a 30-60-90 day plan has the following advantages:

• Ensures that new hires know their roles and expectations and what is expected of them.
• Gives employers a better grasp of new hires’ skills, competencies, and business knowledge by conducting insightful interviews with them.
• Helps new hires establish relationships by keeping in touch and checking in frequently.
• Provides focus and direction for duties throughout the first ninety days of employment, helping new hires manage their time well.

Tip for HR: Although a 30-60-90 day plan should be implemented as soon as a new employee joins the company, it’s never too late. This is especially true if the employee is having difficulty or performing below expectations.

The 30-60-90-day plan for internal promotions  

Let’s say that the workers in your company are dedicated to their career advancement. Then, some may take on more responsibility or advance in their jobs; in that event, a 30-60-90 day plan can assist them in adjusting to their new role and being productive as soon as feasible.

A 30-60-90 day plan has the following advantages for internal promotions:

• Clearly defines expectations and aligns them with overarching goals.
• Reduces employee anxiety about starting a new job by encouraging goal setting, allowing workers to control their work, and acting as a clear reminder of priorities.

Tip for HR: Allowing for a bit of overlap in a role performed by a promoted individual can help a new hire benefit from the experience and knowledge of the outgoing employee. For instance, allowing the departing employee to begin the first thirty days of the new role while they are still employed can give the new hire enough time to familiarize themselves with the workplace and gain perspective.

Writing a 30-60-90-day plan for new hires

Regardless of a worker’s position, developing their talents demands specific performance objectives. Therefore, preventing ambiguity in a 30-60-90 day plan’s goals, objectives, and measurements is imperative.

Although “increase productivity” and “become a better strategic planner” are commendable goals, they do not specify how they will be attained or tracked. Rather, the objectives included in a 30-60-90 day plan ought to be attainable, measurable, and targeted.

The following should be included in the 30-60-90 day plan and orientation packet:

• Welcome to new employees
• Organizing introduction meetings
• Defining the main objectives
• Defining the long- and short-term priorities
• Setting SMART objectives
• 30-day objectives
• 60-day objectives
• 90-day objectives
• Defining success metrics
• Comments and review criteria

1. Welcome to new employees

This is HR’s chance to provide the groundwork for a new hire’s success. A warm welcome goes a long way toward assisting new hires in understanding their role within the broader organizational structure, expectations, and the best ways to get started immediately. A synopsis of their duties, rather than an exhaustive list, helps keep them focused on the most important objectives and KPIs they must meet in the first ninety days.

The greeting ought to contain the following:

• Role specifics
• How the position advances the goals of the larger organization
• An outline of what is expected of the employee from their management regarding assistance and expectations.

Tip for HR: Customize the welcome to include the employee’s role and how they will benefit the company, clients, and coworkers. This will prepare the groundwork for an amazing onboarding process.

2. ‘Get acquainted’ meetings

To help them grasp their function, every recruit should establish a connection with someone on a specified list.

This get-to-know-you section should include:

• Who the worker is meeting, along with their name, position, and background
• Context: The primary goal of the gathering
• Why the employee will benefit from this meeting in their new role
• What subjects ought to be covered and what kinds of questions an employee should pose to get the most out of the meeting

3. Define high-level objectives

After their first ninety days, new hires can see what is expected of them from a high-level perspective. It ought to be outcome-based and connected to certain objectives. High-level objectives may include, for instance, developing a sales plan, maximizing the onboarding of new clients, or contributing fifteen percent of all new sales after ninety days.

Included in the section on long-term goals should be:

• Results-based objectives must be completed in 30, 60, and 90 days.
• The context of this purpose concerning their role. For instance, one of your responsibilities as a sales professional at this company is bringing in new customers.
• There is a clear understanding that this plan will assist the individual in reaching their goal of being fluent in their role by the 90-day mark.

Tip for HR: Sync long-term objectives with the company’s primary strategic objectives. Then, work backward to ascertain which short-term objectives must be completed in 30 and 60 days to support important outcomes at the end of 90 days and where the employee should be at the conclusion of their first 90 days to be best positioned to support those priorities.

SMART objectives

As an HR specialist, you may assist new hires by helping them create achievable, SMART goals.

The goals of SMART are:

• Measurable
• Specific
• Realistic
• Attainable
• Time-Bound

For instance, a digital marketer’s SMART objective would be to boost traffic to the company website by 2% during the first 30 days, rather than aiming for a website traffic increase.

30-day goals:

Getting to know the company and assisting the new hire in settling in are the main goals of the first month. Here, the objectives should focus inwardly on learning “how to do the job.” If there are outside objectives, they must be modest and doable.

The role of HR:

• Together with the new hire’s manager, establish three to five goals.
• Point out that the employee is not working in a vacuum and should be encouraged to ask questions, learn new skills, and get to know the other members of their team. Urge the worker to learn as much as possible and suggest whatever goals they believe they need to attain.

60-day goals:

During the second month, the focus should be the employee’s transition into more role-specific tasks. By the end of the second month, the worker needs to be a valuable team player with a deeper comprehension of the company’s fundamentals and problems.

The role of HR:

• This plan is developed as the new hire comes on, so it’s crucial not to overwhelm them.
• Together with their manager, they work with the employee to extend their roadmap. However, as they begin their employment, make it plain that they will not be expected to reach these objectives.

90-day goals:

Within three months, the goal of the 90-day plan is to guarantee that an employee has been successfully onboarded and is contributing value to the company. To accomplish this purpose, the 90-day goals must closely match the role’s longer-term performance expectations. This stage is mostly one of execution, drawing on the lessons learned throughout the preceding sixty days. The degree to which the 30-day and 60-day goals were met will determine its success.

The role of HR:

• Make sure the worker knows that this is the final month before they should assume their full responsibilities.
• Establish objectives and benchmarks to serve as the foundation for your initial performance contracting discussion.

The plan developed from days 31 through 60 is implemented in the third month. By this stage, the worker must actively participate in projects and collaborate with their group to produce outcomes. These must be reflected in key KPIs.

4. Establishing success metrics

Metrics are required for every stage. The quantifiable component of a SMART objective frequently addresses this, but the devil is in the details. For this reason, all goal’s deliverables ought to be measurable and included in the 30-60-90 day plan.

In addition to helping a new hire visualize their role and what success looks like, having the correct metrics in place provides a manager and new hire with a clear basis to assess how well the onboarding process is going and identify areas where the hire needs more tools, support, or insights. It’s also how regular feedback sessions can be used to gauge development.

5. Review and feedback points

Indicate in this section when the new hire’s manager and an HR team member will follow up with them over the course of the ninety-day process. Diarizing these check-ins is recommended.

The role of HR:

• Make sure every feedback session has enough time for the staff member who will provide feedback
• The leadership group or management provides input
• Metrics must be compared with objectives
• Making plans for extra assistance in case metrics are missed

Tip for HR: You can develop a brief template that will assist managers and new hires in documenting the topics discussed in the meeting. These include a summary of the objectives, KPIs, accomplishments, and significant conclusions or lessons learned.

How to write a 30-60-90 day plan for internal promotions

You might wonder how a strategy that serves as an onboarding guide for new hires can help a current employee. The solution is easy to understand. The 30-60-90 day plan aims to assist recruits in comprehending their duties within the organization’s overarching strategic goals and how and what criteria will be used to evaluate them. It also aims to help them develop a definition of success. The objectives that must be fulfilled to attain these crucial metrics and performance indicators are likewise delineated in the 30-60-90 day plan.

With a few notable exceptions, the 30-60-90 day strategy for internal promotions is thus fairly similar to the 30-60-90 day plan for new hires.

Checklist: internal promotions 30-60-90 day plan

• Best wishes and a “get to know” meeting
• Defining the main objectives
• 30-day objectives
• 60-day objectives
• 90-day objectives
• Defining success metrics
• Comments and review criteria

Tip for HR: For internal promotions, modifying the 30-60-90 plan is a great method for drawing attention to and supporting the actions that initially led to the employee’s promotion. Together, identify their strengths and the contributions they provide to the team, division, and company, and then match them to their short- and long-term objectives.