first-week-plan

---
name: first-week-plan
description: Turns a new starter's name, start date and job into a written day-one-to-day-five plan showing what they are shown, by whom, in what order, and what is checked at the end of each day. Use when someone has accepted a job and their first shift is booked.
---

# Get a new starter useful by Friday, and still here in a month

You give the starter's name, job title, start date, shift pattern and the names of the people who will be working alongside them. You get back a five-page plan, one page per day, that says what happens hour by hour, who is responsible for each part, which legally required items must be recorded and when, and the five-minute question the manager asks at the end of every day. It is written to be printed and put on the office wall, not read on a phone.

## What it does

1. **Take the intake list before writing a single line of the plan.** You need eleven things: the starter's full name, job title, first shift date, the start and finish times of all five shifts, their pay rate and which day they get paid, the site or venue name, the manager who will greet them, the buddy who will work beside them, the section they are joining (bar, kitchen section, floor, housekeeping, reception), whether the right to work check has already been done, and whether the written statement of employment particulars has been issued. If any of the eleven is missing, ask for it once and stop. Do not carry on with a placeholder, because a plan with an invented shift time will be read as a rota.

2. **Confirm the two things the law puts before or on day one, and put them at the top of page one.** GOV.UK's right to work guidance is blunt: "You must check that a job applicant is allowed to work for you in the UK before you employ them" (GOV.UK, *Check if someone can work in the UK*). The written statement is day one, not later: "An employer must give employees and workers a document stating the main conditions of employment when they start work" (GOV.UK, *Written statement of employment particulars*). Print both as a line with an empty date box and an empty initials box. If the owner says the right to work check has not happened, that line becomes the first item on the plan and the starter does not go on the rota until it is ticked.

3. **Write the before-day-one pack and set it to go three working days ahead.** Acas says to "send the new worker important information before their first day" (Acas, *Planning an induction programme*) but gives no lead time, so this plan fixes three working days, because hospitality starters usually have another job to give notice at. The pack is six lines and no more: what time to arrive and which door, who to ask for by name, what to wear and what shoes, what to bring (bank details, National Insurance number, P45 if they have one, passport or share code), what the first shift will be, and a phone number to text if they are running late. Six lines, one side, in the body of a message, not an attachment.

4. **Build day one as a half shift with no solo section, in a fixed order.** Acas warns directly against the opposite: "Avoid giving too much information on the first day. This could be overwhelming" (Acas, *Planning an induction programme*). The order is paperwork, then the walk round, then food, then shadowing, and it ends at or before the halfway point of service. The walk round names real places: fire exits and the assembly point, toilets, lockers and where bags go, the first aid box, the allergen information folder, where the cleaning chemicals live. Before they shadow anyone, sit them down and feed them three items off the menu, because a starter who has tasted the food can answer a customer on day two.

5. **Name the buddy and put their name on the same five shifts.** Acas suggests you "could also consider assigning a mentor or 'buddy'. This can be someone else in the team who supports the new worker to settle in" (Acas, *Planning an induction programme*); this plan makes it compulsory and rosters it. The buddy works the same section, is not the manager, and is on the rota for all five days. Give the buddy exactly three jobs written on their own copy: keep them in sight during service, answer anything without making them feel stupid, and tell the manager one thing at the end of each shift. A buddy who is off on Wednesday is not a buddy, and the plan must move the shift rather than leave the gap.

6. **Place the recorded items across day one and day two, each with a date box and an initials box.** These are the ones that get asked about later: fire evacuation route and assembly point, the sickness reporting rule and when someone must stay away from food, where allergen information is kept and who is allowed to answer an allergy question, safe use of the cleaning chemicals, and the food hygiene instruction for anyone touching open food. GOV.UK's Safer Food, Better Business guidance puts the duty on the business to "train staff and support them to use good hygiene practices" (GOV.UK, *Safer Food, Better Business (SFBB)*, 5 June 2025), and the same pack "must be completed for all your food operations and must outline the food safety practices in place with daily records kept in the diary." Signed and dated on the day it happened, never backfilled.

7. **Give days two, three and four one new thing each, in the order your service needs them.** Day two is product: the menu or the drinks list, and by the end of the shift they can name five dishes with what is in them without looking. Day three is the till or booking system: they take payments with the buddy standing beside them, including one card refund or one voided item, because the thing that frightens a new starter is the mistake, not the sale. Day four is a checklist they own: either the opening set-up or the closing down, done by them start to finish while the buddy watches and says nothing unless it is unsafe. One thing per day, and anything that does not fit is pushed to week two rather than stacked on top.

8. **Make Friday a real solo block with a named safety net and a written finish time.** Day five they run one section on their own for a defined block, written into the plan as a start and end time, while the buddy covers the section next to them and the manager is on the floor. Define the block in the venue's own units: the first two hours of service, or the first eight covers, or the bar until the pre-theatre rush. The point is that they finish the week having done the job, not having watched it. If the site is too busy on Friday to allow it, move the solo block to day four and say so on the page.

9. **Close every day at a fixed clock time with the same two questions, and print the four dates that come after.** The public onboarding playbook from rampstackco puts the cadence plainly: "Check in daily for the first week, weekly for the first month" (rampstackco/claude-skills, *team-onboarding-playbook*). Five minutes at the end of days one to four, twenty minutes at the end of day five, always at a written time, always the same two questions: what did you get stuck on today, and is there anything about the job you were told that turns out not to be true. Write three lines under each: what went well, what they got stuck on, what tomorrow is. At the bottom of page five print four dates taken from the start date: the day twelve check-in, the day twenty-eight check-in, the probation review date, and the date the plan was written.

## Then it checks

1. Every item on all five pages names a real person from the intake list; no item says "a manager", "someone" or "the team".
2. Each of the five days shows a start time and a finish time, and the named buddy appears on all five of those shifts with no gap.
3. Day one contains no task the starter performs alone, and its finish time is at or before the halfway point of that day's service.
4. Each of the six recorded items in step 6, plus the right to work check and the written statement, appears exactly once, with an empty date box and an empty initials box, and none is shown as already done.
5. Day five contains a solo block with a written start and end time, a named person covering the section beside it, and a named manager on the floor.
6. Every name, time, price, dish and pay figure in the document came from the intake list; nothing has been filled in as an example or carried over from another venue.

Any check fails: name it, redo that step once. Failed twice: say what is wrong and stop.

## Rules
- Public information only.
- Never invent a fact, a number or a quote.
- Never invent a name, a shift time, a rota slot or a pay rate to make the plan look finished. The plan is printed and the rota is followed from it; a made-up Wednesday shift means a starter turns up to a closed building or a buddy who is not there, which is worse than handing the owner a page with a blank on it.
- Never mark a training, induction or right to work item as done, dated or signed. The plan produces empty boxes only. A pre-ticked compliance record is a false record, and a false record is far worse for the owner in front of an inspector than no record at all.
- Never soften or reorder a legal item to make the day flow better. If the right to work check has not been done, it stays as the blocking first line even though it spoils the page, because working without it is the owner's liability, not an administrative untidiness.
- This plan is a working document prepared for the owner's solicitor, accountant and Environmental Health Officer to check before it is used. It sets out where the legal duties fall in the week; it is not employment law advice, food safety advice or a compliance certificate, and it does not replace the checks those advisers carry out.

## Built from
- Acas, "Planning an induction programme", https://www.acas.org.uk/inductions/planning-an-induction-programme, last reviewed 30 June 2026: the before-day-one pack, the manager greeting on day one, the buddy, and the explicit warning against overloading the first day.
- Acas, "Induction checklist template", https://www.acas.org.uk/template-checklist-for-induction-of-new-staff, last updated 19 March 2026: the list of items that must be covered and recorded, and the separation of first-day essentials from everything that follows.
- GOV.UK, "Written statement of employment particulars", https://www.gov.uk/employment-contracts-and-conditions/written-statement-of-employment-particulars, no publication date shown on the page, read 13 September 2026: the day-one deadline for the principal statement and what has to be in it.
- GOV.UK, "Safer Food, Better Business (SFBB)", https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/safer-food-better-business-sfbb/safer-food-better-business-sfbb, published 5 June 2025: the duty to train and support staff in good hygiene practices, and the daily diary record that the week-one plan must feed rather than duplicate.
- rampstackco, "team-onboarding-playbook" SKILL.md, https://github.com/rampstackco/claude-skills/blob/main/skills/team-onboarding-playbook/SKILL.md, no publication date shown on the page, read 13 September 2026 (star count unread: api.github.com returned HTTP 403 rate limit on 13 September 2026): the daily-then-weekly check-in cadence and the principle of pre-staging everything a starter needs before day one.

# first-week-plan

## You are given

A folder from a UK hospitality business containing `intake.md`, the eleven facts Claude collected from the owner: the starter's full name, job title, first shift date, the start and finish times of all five shifts, the pay rate and the pay day, the site or venue name, the manager who will greet them, the buddy who will work beside them, the section they are joining (bar, kitchen section, floor, housekeeping, reception), whether the right to work check has already been done, and whether the written statement of employment particulars has been issued. Claude also supplies `week-shape.md`, the hour by hour content it decided for each of the five days, naming a real person against every item. There may also be a rota export, a menu or drinks list, and the venue's existing induction checklist.

If any of the eleven facts in `intake.md` is absent, write nothing and report which one is missing.

## Produce

Write into an `output/` folder next to the inputs:

1. `first-week-plan.md` - five pages, one per day, each page headed with the day, the calendar date in DD Month YYYY, the shift start and finish times, the named manager and the named buddy. Items run in time order down the page with a clock time against each and the responsible person's real name. Page one opens with the two blocking lines from step 2 below. Every page ends with the end of day check-in at its written clock time and the two fixed questions, with three blank lines under `What went well`, `What they got stuck on` and `What tomorrow is`.
2. `first-week-plan-print.md` - the same content laid out one page per sheet for A4 printing, no navigation, nothing that only works on a screen.
3. `compliance-boxes.md` - a single table, columns in this order: `Item`, `Day`, `Who shows it`, `Date completed`, `Initials`. One row each, and once each, for: right to work check, written statement of employment particulars, fire evacuation route and assembly point, sickness reporting rule and when to stay away from food, where allergen information is kept and who may answer an allergy question, safe use of cleaning chemicals, food hygiene instruction for anyone touching open food. The `Date completed` and `Initials` cells are empty in every row.
4. `buddy-brief.md` - one side for the named buddy: the five dates and shift times they are rostered alongside the starter, and their three jobs written out (keep them in sight during service, answer anything without making them feel stupid, tell the manager one thing at the end of each shift).
5. `before-day-one.md` - exactly six lines, ready to paste into the body of a message, dated to send three working days before the first shift: arrival time and which door, who to ask for by name, what to wear and what shoes, what to bring, what the first shift will be, and the phone number to text if running late. State the send date at the top.
6. `forward-dates.md` - the four dates calculated from the first shift date: the day twelve check-in, the day twenty-eight check-in, the probation review date taken from `intake.md`, and the date the plan was written. Show each as a day name plus DD Month YYYY.
7. `gaps.md` - a numbered list of every fact that was missing, ambiguous or contradicted between files, with the person named to answer it.

## Rules

- Every name, time, date, pay figure, dish and price comes from `intake.md` or `week-shape.md`. Never invent a shift time, a rota slot, a buddy, a pay rate or a person. A missing value goes to `gaps.md` and the line stays blank on the page.
- Never write "a manager", "someone", "the team" or "TBC" against an item. Every item names one real person.
- Never mark any training, induction or right to work item as done, dated, ticked or signed. Every box in `compliance-boxes.md` ships empty.
- If `intake.md` says the right to work check has not been done, the first line of page one reads that the check is outstanding and the starter does not go on the rota until it is ticked. Never move it down the page, soften it or fold it into another item.
- Day one contains no task the starter performs alone, and its finish time is at or before the halfway point of that day's service.
- Day five contains a solo block with a written start and end time, a named person covering the section beside it and a named manager on the floor. If the buddy is not rostered on any of the five days, do not shift the buddy, record it in `gaps.md` and leave the day blank.
- Add no commentary on employment law, food safety law or what the owner ought to do. State the items and leave the boxes empty.
- Use British English, £ and DD Month YYYY dates. No em dashes.

## Return

A list of the files written with their absolute paths, the five dates and shift times used, the named manager and buddy, the number of days on which the buddy is not rostered, the count of empty compliance boxes, the four forward dates, and every item in `gaps.md`.