How I onboard new technicians in the first 90 days — my checklist

I run laundromats, not a service business, but I also own a small appliance repair company (3 techs). Onboarding used to be "ride along with Dave for a week and figure it out." Turnover was brutal. Built a proper 90-day onboarding plan and turnover dropped from losing 60% of new hires in year one to about 20%. Here's the framework: Week 1-2: Shadow & Learn - Ride along with senior tech, observe only - Study our pricing guide and common repair types - Meet the office team, understand how dispatch works - Take home the equipment manual binder (yes, paper binder — it works) Week 3-4: Supervised Solo - Handle simple calls independently but senior tech is available by phone - CSR schedules "easy" jobs only (basic diagnostics, part swaps) - End-of-day check-in with me or senior tech — what went well, what was confusing Month 2: Independent with Guardrails - Full schedule but no jobs over $500 without calling in - Start tracking their callback rate and customer ratings - Weekly one-on-one with me (15 min max) Month 3: Full Autonomy + Review - Handle all job types - 90-day review: are they hitting callback targets? Customer ratings? - If yes: raise + formal welcome - If no: honest conversation about whether it's a fit The key insight was that new techs fail because they're thrown into the deep end, not because they're bad at the work. Slowing down the first month pays for itself ten times over.