A new junior costs you roughly £6,000 to £11,000 in lost productivity and supervisor time during the first three months. Most of that investment is squandered by an onboarding plan that consists of "sit with Sarah and pick things up." A structured 30/60/90 plan does not need to be elaborate. It needs to exist, to be written down, and to be the same one you used for the last hire.
This guide gives you a working template for a UK accounting practice. Adapt the specifics, but keep the structure. Firms that do this consistently report time-to-productive-contribution dropping from roughly five months to roughly ten weeks.
Days 1 to 5: systems, security, and shadowing
Week one is not training; it is enabling. Day one is laptop, encrypted drives, MFA on every system, GDPR and AML induction, and a tour of the practice management platform. Day two is shadowing a senior on two existing client calls so the junior hears the rhythm of how the firm speaks to clients. Day three is the engagement-letter and KYC walkthrough using a recent live example. Day four is filing systems and the document portal. Day five is a low-stakes first task: tidying a sole trader file or reconciling a small bank account under supervision.
Do not skip the AML induction. New starters are the single biggest source of accidental non-compliance because they have not yet internalised which client conversations need recording. Get the supervised practice on day one and review the audit log together on day five.
Week 2 to week 4: first independent tasks
By the end of week four, a competent junior should have completed at least one VAT return end-to-end under review, one simple sole trader set of accounts, and one bookkeeping clean-up on a real client file. Pick clients deliberately: friendly, tolerant of minor query delays, and small enough that errors are recoverable. Avoid your highest-value or most demanding clients for the first month regardless of how confident the junior seems.
Schedule a written check-in at the end of week four. Not a "how are you settling in?" chat, a structured review against a competency checklist. The junior should leave the meeting with three specific things they did well and one specific thing to improve. If you cannot fill those four boxes, you have not given them enough work.
Day 30 review: capability mapping and study planning
At the 30-day mark, formally map the junior against your competency framework. Five levels per skill works well: never seen it, observed, assisted, led with review, led independently. Most juniors at day 30 should be at "assisted" on three or four core competencies. Anything more is a bonus.
Lock the study plan now. ACA, ACCA, and AAT students all need protected study leave aligned to exam sittings. Block it in the practice management system as immovable. Tell the rest of the team it is immovable. Tools like the Accupe Team Heatmap make it visible weeks ahead so other work gets scheduled around the block, not on top of it.
Days 31 to 60: client exposure and ownership
Month two is the inflection point. The junior moves from "doing tasks for clients" to "owning small parts of clients." Give them three to five small clients where they are the named first point of contact for routine queries. Brief the clients honestly: "Aisha is your day-to-day contact for VAT and bookkeeping queries; I am still the partner and you can reach me any time." Most SME clients welcome the structure.
This is also where you introduce them to the firm's billing reality. Show them their realisation rate on the work they have done so far. Not as a stick; as context. Juniors who understand from month two that an hour written off is real money tend to write off far fewer hours by month six.
Day 60 review: tougher feedback, growing portfolio
The 60-day review is where you stop being polite. By now you have enough evidence to spot the actual development gaps. Common ones: query letters that are too long, defensive responses to senior review notes, slowness on Excel manipulation, weak attention to formatting in client deliverables. Name them specifically and assign a remediation: a short course, a buddy session, a re-read of the firm's style guide.
On the positive side, raise the portfolio. Add two more clients, ideally including one slightly more complex case. Confidence comes from incremental stretch. Withholding stretch in the name of "letting them settle" is the most common reason juniors plateau in month four and start applying elsewhere by month seven.
Days 61 to 90: speed, autonomy, and the first deadline cycle
Month three is the speed-building month. The junior should now be completing routine VAT returns and small bookkeeping jobs in genuinely competitive time, with review notes shortening week on week. Track the review-note volume: if it is not declining by week ten, something is wrong with the supervision pattern, not the junior.
Crucially, by day 90 the junior should have lived through at least one real deadline week. Quarter-end VAT or a personal-tax mini-rush is ideal. This is where they learn the rhythm of the firm under pressure and where you learn whether they wobble or rise. Both outcomes are information; neither is a verdict at 90 days.
Day 90 review: probation, promotion path, and honest conversation
The 90-day review is formal. Either the junior passes probation cleanly or they do not. Mealy-mouthed "we will see" outcomes serve no-one. If they pass, agree the next six-month development plan and the criteria for the first salary review, in writing. If they fail probation, be honest about why and either extend with a specific improvement plan or part company kindly and quickly.
Almost every long-term retention story in practice traces back to a clear, honest 90-day conversation. Vague onboarding produces vague employees who quietly disengage by month nine. Specific onboarding produces specific employees who know exactly what is expected and where they are heading.
What to track, what to ignore
Useful metrics in the first 90 days: review-note volume per task, time-per-job versus benchmark, study attendance, client-feedback notes, AML check completeness. Useless metrics: keystroke counts, hours logged in office, Teams "active" status. The former measures real growth; the latter measures only your willingness to surveil.
A practice-management platform helps with the useful side. Visual job boards, time tracking against benchmarks, and a heatmap of who is overloaded versus available all give you the data without the surveillance theatre. Accupe ties these into one view per junior so the 90-day review is evidence-based rather than impressionistic.
Closing
A good 30/60/90 plan is the cheapest retention tool you have. It takes a partner roughly six hours to write the first time and roughly thirty minutes to adapt for each subsequent hire. The return is a junior who reaches productive contribution two months earlier and is far less likely to leave in year two. Write it down. Use it every time. Stop trusting osmosis.