Onboarding Setup
- Use when
- You've installed the skills and nothing is configured yet
- Output
- Your Onboarding HQ project created, company-onboarding-context.md filled in from one fifteen-minute interview, and a test run of your first skill
· 9 min read · 12 skills, free
12 Claude Skills That Carry a New Hire From Yes to Day 90
It runs the whole journey: the pre-boarding plan, the emails that get IT and finance moving, the cultural brief, the welcome pack, the per-joiner checklist, the team deck, the intro email, the first goals and the first week. Claude prepares and keeps track; humans welcome.
01What these skills are
A whole onboarding, as installable Claude skills
Onboarding is the stretch where a company's intentions meet its calendar, and it mostly fails as unsent email. The joiner hears silence between the day they said yes and the morning they walk in.
There is one rule the whole pack is built on: Claude prepares and keeps track, humans welcome.
No skill in this set replaces the manager's first conversation, the team's hello, or the lunch on day one. They build the plan, write the requests, keep the checklist honest, and remember what is due.
Install only the ones for your role: 7 for whoever runs onboarding, 4 for the hiring manager, 1 for the person joining. Everyone starts with the same one, which fills in a company context file every other skill reads.
Download all 12 skills
One zip, one folder per skill, plus the company context template and a README. Free, no signup. The same twelve skills live in our open repo, if you would rather read them before you install them.
Install in Claude Code
Two lines, and every skill in the pack loads at once.
/plugin marketplace add polar-bear-org/claude-skills /plugin install onboarding-pack@polar-bear-skills
Using Claude on the web instead? Download the zip above and upload each skill from its install folder under Customize → Skills.
02The catalog
The 12 skills you get
The set is grouped by who installs it. Everyone starts with the same skill:
If you run onboarding (founder, HR lead, or HRBP)
Preboarding Planner
- Use when
- Someone just accepted your offer and day one has to go right
- Output
- The plan from yes to day one: the handoff written down so nobody assumes someone else is doing it, the internal track with an owner and a date per item, the keep-warm touchpoints, and the open risks
Onboarding Comms Drafter
- Use when
- IT, finance and the workspace need to hear about the joiner, and nothing is written
- Output
- One short email per owner, under 100 words, one deadline in the first line and a checklist they can tick, plus the keep-warm notes to the joiner and the nudge for when nobody confirms
Welcome Brief Writer
- Use when
- The start is approaching and the joiner hasn't heard what it's actually like to work here
- Output
- The congratulations choreography for right after the yes, and the one-page cultural brief for three days before: hours, dress code, lunch, rituals and first-day logistics, in the company's real voice
Welcome Pack Designer
- Use when
- You want joiners to receive something on day one that isn't a mug they'll abandon
- Output
- The pack as a company standard: every item marked necessity or emotional with why it earned its place, the per-role variants, the sourcing and shipping realities, and budget math as ranges rather than invented prices
Onboarding Checklist Builder
- Use when
- A pre-boarding plan exists and needs to become something people can tick
- Output
- The per-joiner checklist by phase, every line a task with one named owner and one date, plus a self-contained HTML dashboard with tick boxes, progress per phase, and flags for anything past its deadline
Joiner Companion Builder
- Use when
- New joiners keep asking the same thirty questions and they all land on you
- Output
- The companion's instruction block, a coverage report against the questions joiners actually ask — its “not answered” list is your handbook's holes — and the deployment kit for a shared project or individual accounts
If you're the hiring manager
Team Deck Builder
- Use when
- Someone starts next week and nothing explains where they landed
- Output
- A real pptx in four layers — company, function, team, person — 12 to 18 slides: the first run builds your master, every run after derives the per-joiner edition in minutes
Team Intro Writer
- Use when
- The team needs to hear who's joining before the person walks in
- Output
- One message under 150 words in your voice, with the joiner's own photo, their own background lines and only the personal details they offered, adapted per channel and never sent without their approval
First Goals Writer
- Use when
- A joiner has started and nobody has written down what success looks like
- Output
- Three to five 90-day goals on a 30/60/90 rhythm, each traced to a business goal and each naming the support it assumes, ending in the evaluation paragraph, plus the agenda for the one-hour ways-of-working session
Week One Designer
- Use when
- The start date is close and the joiner's calendar is still empty
- Output
- Day one hour by hour, the meeting map with who, when and why this person at two to three a day, the breathing room blocked on purpose, and the booking list handed to whoever owns calendars
If you're the one joining
My First 90
- Use when
- You start Monday, and it's fifty names, a dozen systems and a hose
- Output
- Your own pinned chat as the dashboard: the 90-day map, the daily two-minute brief, your wins logged with their dates, and your half of the 30, 60 and 90-day conversations built from the chat's own history
03How to use it
Pick the workflow that matches your week
The skills run in the order a real arrival does. The plan comes first, and everything else hangs off it.
Set up once
You have installed the skills and nothing is configured yet.
From yes to day one
Someone just accepted the offer.
The manager's first weeks
You are the hiring manager and the start date is close.
04Setup guide
Install it in five minutes
In Claude Code · two lines
/plugin marketplace add polar-bear-org/claude-skills /plugin install onboarding-pack@polar-bear-skills
In Claude.ai or Claude Desktop · seven clicks
Download the pack, then open Settings
Unzip the pack: its skills folder holds all 12 skills. In Claude, click your name at the bottom left, then Settings.
Open Skills and click Add
Under Customize, choose Skills. Click Add, then Upload a skill.
Drop in a skill file
Drag the skill's file into the box, or click to browse. You can add several at once.
Pick the skill from the pack
In the pack folder, open skills, then the skill you want, and select its SKILL.md — onboarding-setup is a good first one.
Check the preview and upload
Claude shows the skill's name and what it does. Click Upload.
Make sure it is switched on
The skill opens on its own page. Its toggle should be on.
Try it in a new chat
Type / and the skill's name, then say what you need.
Then try one
Run preboarding-planner for [name], starting [date]. What was agreed in the offer: [paste it here]
Run welcome-brief-writer for [name]. My notes on the role and the team: [paste them here]
Run first-goals-writer for [name]. The role description and my notes: [paste them here]
- Pauline Bertry LinkedInex-McKinsey Manager
- Terry Mattheoyianni LinkedInPeople Strategy & HR Governance
Want to know how AI can help you accelerate onboarding?
Connect with PaulineWant to build a comprehensive HR strategy?
Reach out to Terry05Quick reference
Where to start
| Your situation | Skill to run |
|---|---|
| Someone just accepted the offer | Preboarding Planner |
| Ten days out and IT still hasn't been told | Onboarding Comms Drafter |
| She starts Monday and has heard nothing since signing | Welcome Brief Writer |
| A plan exists and nobody can see where it stands | Onboarding Checklist Builder |
| You're the manager, and there is no deck | Team Deck Builder |
| Week two, and no goals are written down | First Goals Writer |
| A start date next week and an empty calendar | Week One Designer |
| You're the one starting on Monday | My First 90 |
06Standards
The quality bar
Every skill in the pack holds the same standard, the one we hold in client work:
07FAQ
Questions people ask
What is in the Onboarding pack?
12 Claude skills that carry a new hire from yes to day 90: the pre-boarding plan, the setup emails, the welcome brief and pack, the checklist, the team deck, the intro, the first goals, the first week, and the joiner's own companion.
How do I install these Claude skills?
In Claude Code, two lines install all 12 at once. In Claude.ai or Claude Desktop, download the zip, open Settings, Skills, Add, and upload the skills you want. Either way it takes about five minutes.
Do I need Claude Code to use them?
No. The skills work in Claude.ai, Claude Desktop and Claude Code. In the app you upload them yourself; in Claude Code one command installs the whole pack.
Do the skills work with ChatGPT or other assistants?
They are built as Claude Skills, and installing them is a Claude feature. Each one is a plain Markdown file, so you can read it and reuse the method elsewhere, but it will not load and trigger by itself outside Claude.
Will Claude welcome the new hire for us?
No. Claude prepares and keeps track, humans welcome. No skill replaces the manager's first conversation, the team's hello, or the lunch on day one. The congratulations notes are prompted, never ghost-written, and the joiner approves their own introduction before it is sent.
Is the pack free?
Yes. It is free to use inside your company and in client work, and not for resale. There is no signup: the download and the install command are on this page.
08Who made this
Polar Bear and Terry Mattheoyianni
Polar Bear is a people ops consultancy for human-size teams (20 to 200 people). Built by ex-McKinsey founders with a dream to make AI work for People, not instead of them. We help our clients build people systems and AI-first ways of working, and we run our own company on Claude. This pack is the free, self-serve version of how we work. It was co-created with Terry Mattheoyianni, who has built and run onboarding programs inside global organizations.
The pack carries one joiner at a time, by hand, and that is enough at a few hires a year. When the requests need scheduling the moment a start date locks, the checklist needs feeding from your systems, and the companion needs to be always on, that stops being a skill and becomes a build. That's what we do with clients.