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A new hire works a seat alone once someone with authority has watched them do it right and signed for it, however long they have been on the payroll.

A RocketLevel SOP for owners and department leads, backed by decades of experience in the trade. About a 6-minute read.

Onboarding a New Restoration Technician: The First 30 Days sets this rule, and the seven pieces behind it, for technicians. This page extends it to every seat in the company, from the person answering the phone to the person running a second location. The reason is the same in every seat: the mistakes a new person makes alone are the ones customers, decision makers and carriers remember.

The seven pieces every role needs

  1. A scorecard. The one or two numbers that say the seat is being done well. The Accountability Chart names the seat. The scorecard says how you know.
  2. An onboarding plan. What they learn, in what order, and who teaches it.
  3. The written standard operating procedures (SOPs) for the seat. If it is not written, the new person learns whatever the last person happened to do.
  4. Supervised practice. Real work, with someone qualified beside them.
  5. An observed demonstration. They do the whole task while the signer watches and stays out of it.
  6. System access. They are set up in the systems the seat uses and can work a live file in them. Authority that commits the company, such as pricing, dispatch rights and payments, is switched on at sign-off, not before.
  7. A written sign-off. Who signed, the date, and what the person is cleared to do alone. It goes in the personnel file.

What each seat demonstrates, and who signs

Seat Demonstrates before working alone Who signs
Intake and dispatch Runs The One-Call Intake Standard on live calls, including one after-hours escalation Office manager or owner
Mitigation technician The sign-off in the technician onboarding page, including complete documentation on a live loss Crew lead, confirmed by operations
Crew lead A job run from arrival to closeout: safety briefing, stabilization, a complete file, and updates on the promised cadence Operations manager
Estimator A set number of estimates, named in advance, each reviewed line by line and later compared with actual job cost Senior estimator or owner
Project manager A job run to completion with updates on schedule, change orders approved before the work, and a closed billing package Operations manager
Contents lead A pack-out with a complete inventory, photos and chain of custody, and a clean pack-back Operations manager
Reconstruction manager Sub verification, a production budget set before work starts, and change control on a live job Operations manager or owner
Commercial business development owner A first meeting and a site walk to the standard in Across the Table: The Commercial Field Manual, and a clean pipeline review Owner
Accounts receivable (AR) and billing A complete invoice package, and the aging report worked on the set day for a full month Owner or controller
Location leader The weekly meeting and the monthly P&L review, run for a quarter with the owner in the room Owner

Safety-critical tasks carry their own rules on top of this table. A required respirator, for example, needs a medical evaluation before anyone wears it on a job, and a tight-fitting one needs a fit test as well, under OSHA's respiratory protection standard (29 CFR 1910.134(e)(1) and (f)(2)). Confined spaces and regulated materials follow OSHA and your written safety program. Putting Someone in Charge of Safety and Restoration Certifications and Training: The Complete Map cover them.

Re-certify when the job changes

A sign-off covers the SOP as it read on the day it was signed. When an SOP changes in a way that matters, everyone cleared on it gets observed again on the new version. The same rule applies when someone moves into a seat they have not held before, even inside the same company.

Cover the seats where one sick day stops work