A pre-arrival checklist should give every practical task an owner and a deadline. Before an overseas hotel employee travels, confirm the offer, start date, housing, journey, first-day contact and outstanding documents. “HR is handling it” is not enough if nobody knows who will provide the keys or answer a late-arrival call.
Use this checklist as the preparation stage of the onboarding guide. Adapt it to the actual property and employee; it is a suggested management tool, not a statutory timetable.
Confirm the offer and key contacts
Check that the employee and hotel are working from the same final conditions. Confirm the legal employer, workplace, duties, pay basis, expected hours and start date. Record any change clearly and obtain acknowledgement rather than leaving conflicting versions in message threads.
WRC guidance explains employers' obligations to provide written employment terms, including core information within five days of commencement. Consult its terms guidance for the full obligations. Practical travel decisions should still be clarified before departure rather than left until an administrative deadline.
Assign responsibilities and due dates
Create one checklist entry per task using: task; owner; due date; evidence; status; backup contact. For example, the housing contact confirms room access, payroll confirms required information, and the line manager confirms reporting instructions. Allocate the roles to actual people at your hotel.
Suggested rows are: final offer; eligibility checks; accommodation address and charges; key handover; travel plan; first-day instructions; uniform or equipment; payroll contact; and unresolved questions. Record which checks are complete, who has verified them and what information payroll still needs. Share sensitive records only with the authorised person.
Do not put account passwords or unnecessary document copies in a widely shared arrival sheet. Record completion status and direct sensitive information to the authorised person.
Check readiness with the employee
Send the important arrangements in clear language and ask the employee to explain the plan back in their own words. Ask what remains uncertain. A message marked as read does not establish that a late-night transport connection or key arrangement is understood.
Compare plans with the employee's first-48-hours guide. Confirm who pays for each agreed arrangement and whether any proposed employer support is actually approved. Avoid booking a journey while accommodation remains only a possibility.
Agree contingencies and the first-day handover
Decide what happens if travel is delayed, a key contact is unavailable or the planned room cannot be accessed. Give the employee a reachable backup and clarify who can authorise an alternative expense.
For a fictional scenario, the arrival coordinator is unexpectedly absent. A useful checklist identifies another named person who can access the accommodation and knows the arrival details. Simply copying a second email address does not establish that handover.
Before closing preparation, confirm the reporting time, entrance, supervisor and initial induction arrangements. Hand over outstanding actions to the receiving manager with their owners and dates. The checklist is complete when the arrangements are confirmed and understood, not merely when every row has been coloured green.