Before this person
is authorised
to work.
A free worker onboarding and competence checklist: 19 checks in plain English, each with the regulation behind it. Right to work, competence, induction and PPE, in one pass.
Published · Last reviewed
What onboarding a worker
actually has to cover.
This is the checklist with the widest spread of law behind it. Right to work is immigration law with a civil penalty attached. Competence is CDM 2015. Health surveillance is COSHH, noise and vibration. Induction is CDM again. Get it into one pass per person and the answer to "is this person authorised to work here" becomes a date rather than an argument.
The civil penalty, what competence actually means, and who holds the record+
- Right to work is not optional
- Employing somebody without the right to work in the UK carries a civil penalty of up to £60,000 per worker. The statutory excuse only exists if you carried out and recorded a prescribed check before employment started. A copy taken afterwards is not a defence.
- Competence is not a card
- CDM 2015 Reg 8 requires skills, knowledge, training and experience, and organisational capability where it is a business. A CSCS card evidences a health and safety test and a qualification; it is not a licence and it does not say the holder can do the specific task.
- Card checks go stale
- A card checked at onboarding and never looked at again is a snapshot. Expiry is the single most common gap an audit finds, because nobody owns the date once the person is working.
- Health surveillance
- Where work involves noise, vibration, respirable crystalline silica, lead or asbestos, health surveillance is a duty, not a benefit. It has a baseline at onboarding, which is exactly the point at which it is easiest to miss.
- What this checklist covers
- 19 checks across three sections: 6 before the person is engaged, 7 on competence and health, 6 on the day they arrive. Each entry names the regulation or statute it comes from.
Before they are engaged.
Six checks that happen off site, most of which are not health and safety law at all.
Competence and health.
Seven checks on whether this person can safely do the specific thing you are about to ask them to do.
The day they arrive.
Six checks that turn a hired person into an authorised one.
This browser is not letting the page store anything, so the checklist will count and print correctly but will be empty again if you reload. Save as PDF before you leave.
A starting point for your own review, not legal advice. Always check against the current regulations and HSE guidance. Put your own company in the field above and the PDF carries your name instead of ours. Ticks, notes and site details stay in your browser. Nothing is sent to us.
Or use it as a printable template.
Download the blank worker onboarding checklist as a PDF, or work through the list above on screen and save that instead, dated and carrying the site, the person who prepared it and the score out of 19. Nothing is gated: no email address to hand over, no account to create, no trial to start.
- A blank template
- The PDF above carries all 19 checks, each with the regulation it comes from and a ruled line for the evidence, the owner and the date. Print it and fill it in on site.
- Or a completed record
- Work through it on screen first and Save as PDF produces a dated record of what was in place and what was not, with your evidence notes typed against each check.
- Your ticks stay in your browser
- Ticks, notes and site details are held on this device only. Nothing is sent to us, so you can close the tab and pick it up tomorrow on the same machine.
- Your name on it, not ours
- Put your company in the field above and the downloaded PDF carries your letterhead instead of Unibuild's. It is free: a sheet you hand to a client should be able to have your name on it.
Worth knowing. A checklist filled in once, the week of an audit, is a snapshot. The evidence behind it is either generated as the work runs or reconstructed under pressure, and that is the difference between a template and a record. It is also what the health and safety module is for.
The same onboarding,
read by role.
These are the same checks above, grouped by whoever normally answers for them.
HR or the office
The whole before-engagement section. Right to work in particular: the statutory excuse exists only if the check was done before employment began and recorded properly.
Health and safety
Competence, health surveillance and face fit. These are the ones that are cheapest at onboarding and most expensive to reconstruct three years later.
Site manager
The whole day-one section. Nobody goes past the gate without an induction, and an induction that is not recorded did not happen.
Supervisor or ganger
RAMS briefing and the practical competence check. You are the person who finds out first whether the ticket matches the ability.
The worker
Honest disclosure on health and experience, PPE worn, and the stop-work authority actually used. A card does not make anybody safe.
Principal contractor
That everybody on your site has been through this, including agency, labour-only and the subcontractor who arrived at short notice on Friday.
You shouldn't need
this checklist.
On the platform this is a person record rather than a folder: cards, tickets, inductions and RAMS acceptances against the individual, with the expiry dates watched.
What people ask before
they use the checklist.
The questions that come up most often around a worker onboarding checklist, answered against the regulations rather than around them.
What is the penalty for not checking right to work?+
Is a CSCS card proof of competence?+
How often should we re-check competence?+
Do we need to induct agency and subcontract workers?+
When is a face fit test required?+
How long should we keep onboarding records?+
Is this checklist free, and do I have to sign up?+
Can I put my own company name on the PDF?+
Does Unibuild do this for me?+
On the next
person you hire.
Run this once, end to end, and see how much of it is currently spread across three systems and somebody's memory.