TL;DR: Most HR teams already use AI. Almost none of it goes toward HR work. I’m sharing the exact 4-part framework I use to brief AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT, plus three copy-paste prompts that turn one onboarding plan into a checklist, an interactive tracker, and a new-hire welcome guide.
OpenAI’s research on how people actually use ChatGPT found that 90% of HR professionals’ messages have nothing to do with HR work. Instead, HR pros use AI mostly for marketing, engineering, and finance tasks, the same general-purpose work everyone else uses it for. The tool that could be rebuilding onboarding, PTO policy, and employee relations workflows is instead drafting the occasional email.
Here, I’m sharing my prompting framework, plus specific prompts and workflows for onboarding. I walked through this live on a recent webinar; watch the recording here.
HR Prompt Framework
Before you write a single AI prompt, write it the way you’d brief a sharp new hire on their first day. They’re smart, but they know nothing about your company, your policies, or the person you’re writing for. So I prompt with four things, every time.
Context. Who I am, what’s going on, and any materials I have. For onboarding specific workflows, I paste the job description, the handbook section, and any notes. The more context given, the better the output.
The ask. The specific deliverable, not a vague request. Not “help me with onboarding.” A 30/60/90 day onboarding plan, split three ways, with owners and due dates.
What good looks like. Format, length, audience, tone. If I have an example, I paste it in. Skip this step and the AI hands you a 15-page memo when you wanted a one-page checklist.
Guardrails. What it should not do, ie: don’t invent policy, don’t draw conclusions. Ask me when you’re unsure.
Here’s the difference this framework makes in practice. Most people type a prompt like this:
Make an onboarding checklist for a new customer success manager.
Briefed like a new hire, the same request looks like this:
I’m the People Ops lead at a 120-person outdoor retail company. We’re onboarding a Customer Success Manager who starts Monday, October 5. The job description is pasted below.
Create a 30/60/90-day onboarding plan split into three separate checklists: one for the new hire, one for their manager, and one for People Ops. Each item should have an owner and a due date.
Keep each checklist to 8-12 items: plain language, no corporate jargon. Front-load anything compliance-related (I-9 verification must be done within 3 business days).
Don’t invent company-specific tools or policies. If something depends on information I haven’t given you, leave a [bracketed placeholder] instead of guessing.
Job description: Customer Success Manager, Harbor & Pine Outfitters. Harbor & Pine is a 120-person outdoor gear retailer with 14 stores and a growing B2B wholesale business. The CSM owns a book of 40 wholesale accounts, runs quarterly business reviews, manages reorders and seasonal line launches, and partners with sales on renewals. Reports to the Director of Wholesale. Tools: Salesforce, Zendesk, Google Workspace, Slack. Location: hybrid, Portland, OR office Tuesday through Thursday. Requirements: 3+ years in account management or customer success, retail or CPG experience preferred.
Same tool, different output.
HR Onboarding Prompts
I like to start with onboarding because it touches at least three different people: the new hire, the manager, and the People Ops team. I’ve found that most AI onboarding prompts fail because they ask for one generic checklist instead of three role-specific ones.
Create a 30/60/90 onboarding checklist
Start with the prompt above. This is the core of any new-employee onboarding checklist, no matter the role. Here’s the key piece of the prompt:
Create a 30/60/90-day onboarding plan for a [role] starting [date], split into three separate checklists: one for the new hire, one for their manager, one for people ops. Include what each owns and by when.
Turn the checklist into a tracker
Once I have the plan, I don’t stop at a static document. I turn it into something the new hire actually uses:
Turn this onboarding plan into an interactive tracker for the new hire. Show a progress bar at the top, an “up next” section with the next three tasks by due date, and each phase as its own section with checkboxes. Keep the design clean and simple.
That one prompt builds a small working app, checkboxes and all, without a developer involved. I share the link with the new hire, and they check off their own onboarding, including the tech setup tasks (if your stack includes something like Google Workspace provisioning, I list those logins as their own line items).
Close the loop with a welcome guide
Then I use the same plan to build the welcome guide in Claude Design and send it ahead of their start date, where I have a reusable, company-branded design system. Here’s the Claude Design prompt I use:
Turn this into a one-page welcome guide we send the new hire the Friday before they start. Include: a short welcome note from their manager, first-day logistics (arrival time, where to go, who meets them, what to bring), a “your first week” section with the key meetings, and the three things they should know about the team. Warm and clean, easy to read on a phone. Use [placeholders] for anything you don’t have, like the office address.
One plan, three formats: a checklist for my team, a tracker for the new hire, and a welcome guide for the moment before day one.
Next up: Employee Relations
This is the first topic in my AI Prompts for HR series. Next up, I’ll cover the prompts and guardrails for employee relations and investigations. Save your spot here.
