HR Checklists: How to Harness Their Power

What do pilots, surgeons, and army commanders have in common? They all know the benefits of checklists inside out. In their case, a checklist can decide matters of life and death. In HR work the stakes may not be quite that high, but here too a checklist can work wonders – across the most varied areas: from recruitment through onboarding to employer branding campaigns and NPS surveys. Here’s how to put the power of checklists to work – individually and as a team.

The checklist as a universal tool for streamlining work

A checklist contains the actions that must be completed to reach a goal. They can be a sequence of tasks in a specific order or a list of key things to do. A checklist usually covers repeatable activities and defines the critical steps whose omission increases the risk of error. The most popular types of checklists are:

• READ-DO – this checklist works like a recipe. We read which ingredients to add, in what order, and how to prepare them so we can enjoy a delicious dish. In HR, such a checklist can be a ready-made recipe for a successful preboarding or a valuable exit interview.
• DO-CONFIRM – a list that requires confirming the completion of given steps, so you don’t forget the critical actions that determine whether the next stages finish successfully. This tool is used by pilots, for example – the list gives them certainty that they have completed every necessary element of a complex procedure.

A list built with surgical precision

The checklist is a universal tool used not only in private life but also in fields like aviation and... medicine.

Atul Gawande, a surgeon and endocrinologist, created checklists for surgical teams while working with the WHO. After they were implemented in 8 hospitals around the world, post-operative complications dropped by 35%, and deaths fell by as much as 47%. Gawande is also the author of the famous book “The Checklist Manifesto,” which explores checklists in depth.

Functions and benefits of checklists

Greater work effectiveness

Multitasking does not equal effectiveness. Research shows that when we do several things at once, our productivity can be up to 40% lower. Using checklists systematizes activities and gives them order and priorities, so you can focus on one thing with a clear head.

More room for creativity

With checklists, we get a kind of mini cheat sheet we can refer to while performing repeatable activities. Part of the attention we would otherwise spend on remembering every key step of a task is freed up. That lets us concentrate more on other, more creative activities.

Easier task delegation

Delegating responsibilities is an inseparable part of teamwork. With a checklist, sharing tasks becomes much easier. With a ready-made list, we hand a team member concrete steps and tasks, often with an assigned order and priority. That increases the chance of reaching the goal successfully – especially when we’re introducing someone to new tasks. When taking over new responsibilities, a checklist acts as a signpost. It gives direction to the work.

Verifying procedures

Just because we do something a certain way doesn’t mean it’s the only – or most effective – path to the goal. By monitoring our work and examining repeatable, even the most automatic activities, we may notice that not all of the current steps are necessary. Maybe some take too long, or their order should change? This is where the checklist helps. The very process of creating one is a perfect opportunity to verify and improve existing procedures.

A checklist makes tracking progress easier

Using this method requires monitoring progress on an ongoing basis and checking where we are in the project or process. Without the evaluation element, using checklists misses the point – especially in teamwork, where a deadlock in one task can delay the completion of the remaining activities.

An effective checklist – how to create one and work with it

To create an effective checklist, it’s good to keep a few principles in mind so it truly supports team and individual work.

1. Start by defining the area or task where a checklist would help. To do that, it’s worth writing down, as you go, the repeatable activities that are an inseparable part of your work. That habit lets you standardize work through checklists and gives you material to work with.
2. Once you’ve determined where checklists will be helpful, break the work down into individual steps and assign priorities. Also consider whether some of these activities feel so routine that they sometimes slip your attention – and without them, an error or project delay is easy. It’s very important to catch those and add them to the list. That way you don’t have to remember every detail that may turn out to be crucial.

A good checklist is a simple checklist

A checklist that’s too long can create extra confusion instead of simplifying things and saving time. A checklist is not an instruction manual describing an activity in detail. With this tool, we focus on the key activities that must be performed in a specific sequence or that easily escape our attention.

According to Atul Gawande, a good checklist contains 5 to 9 items that fit on a single page.

For a checklist to be useful, it can’t be too complicated. The wording and phrases it contains should be clear to everyone who will use it. Consult your team and make sure everyone understands its content and knows which actions to take and when. When it comes to content and form, two rules are worth remembering.

• Avoid long words – the list’s content should be easy to take in. Reach for simple vocabulary or abbreviations commonly used in your team or organization.
• Avoid negations – a checklist should clearly state what to do, not what to avoid.

Once the checklist is ready, share it in a form accessible to everyone who needs it. Digital versions are definitely easier to use in a larger group – particularly important for checklists created for a team.

Thanks to online solutions, everyone involved in a project can keep the rest of the crew updated on where they are. They can also flag the obstacles they encounter. On top of that, a digitized checklist can be modified and refined together – including by distributed teams or in hybrid work.

Creating and rolling out a checklist isn’t the end of the work. It’s worth testing it – checking whether some activities take too long, seem confusing, or are unnecessary. Make improvements, test, and finalize the next version until it works.

Want to discover specific apps and tools for working with checklists? Dagmara Ptasińska recommends them in her conversation with Gamfi. Read the interview>>

Checklists in HR 

Checklists are a universal tool with broad applications across many HR areas. From recruitment through employer branding projects, onboarding, or even exit interviews – in practically every one of these fields, working with a checklist can deliver results.

It all depends on the needs of the organization, department, or team. To define them, play the observer for a while and look at your work more consciously. More consciously means less routinely – because it’s precisely the activities and areas we treat as routine that can slip away in the rush of duties. Sometimes skipping one small thing can prove critical to the effectiveness of the whole process or project.

Types of checklists to use in HR

To-Do List

This is probably the most common type of checklist. Most of us use it intuitively in every area of life. It’s a list of things to do, with tasks written in any order – completing one usually doesn’t depend on completing another. To-do lists can cover long-term goals as well as more urgent ones. This type of checklist has very broad applications. It’s universal enough to help in practically every HR field or project, used individually or in teamwork.

An example? A preboarding checklist. It can include items like sending the welcome pack, preparing equipment, granting access to systems and tools, preparing the contract, or sending a welcome message from the team. Meanwhile, a task list for kicking off a new recruitment process can remind you to publish the job ad, search the candidate database, run an x-ray search, and so on.

Training Checklist

The range of roles within a single organization can be very wide, and growth in each of them requires building competencies. A training checklist helps bring order to this area. Use it to define which training sessions employees should complete when they join the organization, or how to extend the training package – for example, after a promotion to a more senior position or as part of a company development program.

Task Checklist

This type resembles a to-do list – but here the order of the steps matters. Their chronology determines whether the goal is reached. Without first publishing the job ad or actively searching for candidates in the available channels, you won’t hold the first interviews with people interested in the new role. If we want to give new employees a warm welcome, preparations for their first day should start at the preboarding stage and proceed step by step through every task on the list.

Troubleshooting Checklist

A special type of checklist. Its job is to support solving a problem or getting out of a crisis. It contains the right questions, which help define the problem and find a solution. This tool can be especially useful when implementing new, strategic solutions or projects – for example, rolling out a new HRIS or launching an employer branding campaign.

Coordination Checklist

This checklist comes in handy for projects that require the coordination and collaboration of different departments or people – onboarding, for example. A shared checklist gathering the activities essential to the onboarding process is a great tool for HR, IT, the hiring manager, the buddy, and the new employee themselves. Preparing documents and equipment, shipping the welcome pack, the first-day agenda, the introductory training cycle – these are just some of the tasks that could appear on such a list.

Checklists are especially dear to us. We use them extensively in Gamfi Onboarding, our employee onboarding application. We equip managers and buddies with them, among others. The application itself is largely built on the checklist mechanism – the consecutive steps of the process (such as the preboarding stage) launch automatically in a pre-planned order. As users complete tasks, they automatically “check them off,” just like on a checklist.

AAR – the HR checklist that crowns the work

The After-Action Review is a tool created by the US Army that’s also used in business settings. The essence of AAR is reacting quickly to mistakes and developing possible solutions – ideally right after a project ends, or even while it’s still running. The point is to draw conclusions “while they’re hot,” when it’s easier to diagnose the difficulties encountered and develop a more effective way of working for the future.

Using the After-Action Review method, we analyze four questions:

• What goal did we want to achieve?
• What did we achieve? What was the result of our actions?
• What caused these results?
• Which activities should we change, and what do we want to continue – and why?

The AAR approach supports a culture of continuous learning and lets organizations grow in a way that keeps up with changes in their business environment and workplace – or even sets the direction for them.

The After-Action Review in HR

AAR can be invaluable support when running NPS surveys. When the score isn’t satisfying, maybe it’s worth changing the wording of the questions, their number, or the channel where the customer encounters the survey. The same goes for employer branding – why didn’t we receive a satisfying number of resumes at the job fair, and how can we change that in the future? This way of thinking about and summarizing projects builds the team and focuses attention on improvements instead of failures.

Want to harness the power of checklists in your onboarding – and automate and digitize the whole process while you’re at it? No problem! We’ll gladly show you how checklists can support your managers, buddies, and new hires. Trust us – it’s a solution that will change everything in your onboarding. For the better, of course.

Replace the analog checklist with an interactive app that automates the entire onboarding process.

Try the Gamfi Onboarding app for free!