---
name: onboarding-buddy-plan
description: "Design the buddy system that makes new-hire onboarding human — the buddy's actual job (context and safety, not training), the 30-day touchpoint plan, the ask-me-anything contract, and the buddy selection that avoids the two classic miscasts. Use when asked set up an onboarding buddy program, I'm buddying the new hire what do I do, our onboarding is docs with no humans, or the new person is drowning quietly. Produces the buddy role definition, the touchpoint schedule, the first-week script, and the escalation line."
---

# Onboarding Buddy Plan Skill

Onboarding docs answer the documented questions; the buddy exists for the *undocumented* ones — "who actually decides this," "is it normal that nobody replied," "can I ask the VP directly or is that weird" — the questions new hires won't ask their manager because every one feels like an admission. The buddy's job is context and psychological safety, explicitly *not* training (that's the manager's and the docs' job — miscasting the buddy as trainer burns them out and confuses accountability). The plan makes the role concrete: selection, the touchpoint arc, the safety contract, and the line where buddy concerns route onward.

## What This Skill Produces

- **The role definition** — what the buddy owns (context, norms, safety-net), what they don't (tasks, evaluation, training)
- **The touchpoint arc** — day 1, daily-ish week one, weekly to day 30, with each conversation's actual purpose
- **The first-week script** — the walkthroughs that matter: the unwritten norms, the who's-who, the [working-agreements](../working-agreements/SKILL.md) tour
- **The escalation line** — what the buddy notices and where it goes (struggling ≠ snitching; the line is drawn carefully)

## Required Inputs

Ask for these if not provided:
- **The new hire's shape** — role, seniority, remote/local; a senior remote hire needs org-context density, a junior local one needs more safety-net
- **The buddy candidates** — the selection rules screen for the two miscasts: not the manager (kills the safe-questions channel), not the busiest star (no time = guilt on both sides); the right buddy is adjacent-team-or-same-team, tenured 1–3 years (remembers being new), and genuinely willing
- **What onboarding already covers** — the docs/training that exist; the buddy fills around them, not instead of them
- **The team's honest quirks** — the unwritten rules a newcomer would violate innocently ("the 9am 'standup' is optional but the Thursday one isn't") — this list is the buddy's curriculum

## Framework: The Plan Rules

1. **Context, not training:** the buddy explains how things *actually* work — the org's real decision paths, the personalities, the norms nobody wrote — and never owns task competence. The split stated to everyone: manager owns performance, docs own process, buddy owns "the water you're swimming in."
2. **The safety contract is explicit:** day one, said out loud: "No stupid questions to me — I'm not evaluating you, and what you ask me stays between us [with the safety-critical exception noted]." The contract is what unlocks the questions that actually block new hires; implied safety unlocks nothing.
3. **Touchpoints front-loaded, then tapering:** day 1 (the tour: people, norms, tools, the where-things-live map) → short daily-ish check-ins week one ("what was confusing today?" — the best question in onboarding) → weekly through day 30 → then organic. Each check-in's purpose is *surfacing confusion early*, not status.
4. **The buddy teaches the askable map:** who to ask what (and who *not* to ping directly), which channels are alive, how [office-hours-design](../office-hours-design/SKILL.md)-style access works here — converting the org from a directory into a navigable social graph. This map is the single highest-value transfer of the whole program.
5. **The escalation line, drawn in advance:** the buddy will notice things — drowning, mis-set expectations, a manager mismatch. The rule: *patterns that block success* go to the manager as advocacy ("she needs access nobody's granted; three days blocked"), personal confidences don't, and the new hire knows the rule too. A buddy who reports everything is a spy; one who reports nothing wastes the early-warning position.

## Output Format

# Buddy Plan: [new hire] × [buddy] — 30 days

## The Role Split
[Buddy owns: … · Manager owns: … · Docs own: … — stated to all three]

## The Arc
| When | Touchpoint | Its purpose |
|---|---|---|
[Day 1 tour → week-1 dailies → weekly to 30 · the what-was-confusing question standing]

## First-Week Curriculum
[The unwritten norms list · the askable map · the agreements/handbook tour]

## The Safety Contract + Escalation Line
[The day-one words · what routes to the manager (patterns-blocking-success, as advocacy) · what never does]

## Quality Checks

- [ ] The buddy is neither the manager nor the overloaded star
- [ ] The safety contract is spoken, with its exception honest
- [ ] Touchpoints front-load and each has a purpose beyond "checking in"
- [ ] The unwritten-norms list and askable map are actually written for the buddy
- [ ] The escalation line is known to both buddy and new hire

## Anti-Patterns

- [ ] Do not cast the manager as buddy — it deletes the safe channel the role exists for
- [ ] Do not make the buddy the trainer — accountability blurs and the buddy burns out
- [ ] Do not run buddyship on vibes — the arc and curriculum are what separate it from "lunch once"
- [ ] Do not let the buddy report confidences — one leak ends the contract for the whole program
- [ ] Do not stop at day 5 — week three is when the real questions arrive, to whoever's still showing up