Onboarding a New Crew Member: The Week-One Checklist for Christmas Light Crews

Onboarding a new crew member is the week that decides whether your seasonal hire earns their day rate or costs you a callback. It is tempting to hand a new guy a ladder on day one and hope. That is how you get a fall, a cracked gutter, or a string that fails in the first cold snap. This week-one checklist for onboarding a new crew member covers what to teach each day, what gear to put in their hands, and how you know they are ready to run point.

In the video above I talk about why hiring a pro crew is what lets you stop hanging lights yourself and start scaling. I ran 4 crews at my install company before I sold it in 2018. Every one of those crews started as a stranger with no roof time. The difference between the ones who stuck and the ones who washed out came down to the first five days.

What should a new crew member learn on day one?

Day one is paperwork, safety, and the shop. Not the roof. Your new hire fills out W-2 forms, sits through the safety talk, learns where the harness kits live, and walks the truck loadout. If they can tell you where every tool goes and why a harness is not optional, day one is a pass.

• Paperwork first. W-2 seasonal or part-time, signed before they touch a ladder. More on why below.
• The safety talk. A safety harness and roof anchor kit are required on roofs over 6 feet under OSHA rules. That is a checkpoint in the pre-install SOP, not a suggestion. I spent years as a firefighter before I started this business, and I have seen what a fall from a one-story roof does to a person. Nobody on my crews skipped the harness.
• Truck and shop tour. Where the ladders ride, where the clips live, where the finished strings go. They should be able to load the truck from memory by the end of the week.
• Ladder rules. Footing checked, ladder tied off or footed, both hands free before anyone steps onto the roof. Say it on day one and check it every day after.

Why should you hire W-2 instead of 1099 for seasonal help?

Hire W-2 part-time or seasonal help, even if it costs more on paper. A 1099 helper who gets hurt on a roof leaves you exposed on workers' comp and liability. Hiring help in year one is fine and sometimes necessary. Doing it on a handshake and a 1099 form is where new contractors get burned.

Pay a competent helper $150 to $250 per day in 2026 dollars. Skilled crew leaders bill higher. That day rate buys you a person who shows up, climbs safely, and follows the SOP. The cheaper option is a 1099 guy you found on a job board. He has no workers' comp through you, and the day he slides off a wet roof is the day you find out what your policy does not cover.

Set the day rate in writing before day one. Write down the start time, the pay schedule, and what a full day looks like. A new hire who knows the deal does not spend week one wondering if they are getting shorted.

What gear does a new hire need in week one?

A new crew member needs a harness and anchor kit, gloves, a headlamp, a clip pouch, and a labeled spot on the truck. The company supplies the safety gear and the install supplies. They bring boots and a work ethic. Put the gear in their hands on day one so they never have a reason to improvise.

Stock the truck from the Hardware & Lighting Supplies collection at Christmas Lights HQ so every clip, plug, and spool matches what the new hire trained on in the shop. If you are buying your first season of material, the Pro Christmas Light Kits come pre-matched with C9 LED bulbs, SPT-1 socket wire, C9 Wedge Tuff Clips, and Gilbert plugs. One kit, one system, one thing to teach.

How do you train a new hire on the shop workflow before they touch a roof?

Day two happens in the shop. Pre-bulb and pre-clip every string at the shop, not on the roof. Do not cut strings to length before arrival. Drop finished strings into a 50-gallon garbage can. A new hire who builds strings for a full day learns the system with both feet on concrete.

This is the step that gets skipped. Shop work feels like it is beneath a new hire, so they get rushed to the ladder. Backwards. The shop is where they learn bulb spacing, which clip goes on which edge, how a Gilbert plug seats on the wire, and why a cut string locks you into the wrong length and wastes wire. The full method is in the pre-bulb and pre-clip shop workflow.

Then teach the handoff. The can goes to the truck, the truck goes to the job site, the can goes to the ladder, and the strings come out at the install. When they can run that chain without asking, they are ready for a ride-along.

What does the week-one checklist look like day by day?

Week one moves from the shop to the ground to the roof, in that order. Day one is paperwork and safety. Day two is string building. Day three is a ride-along on the ground. Day four is ladder time with a crew lead. Day five is a full install and the quality-control walkthrough.

Day three is the one to protect. A new hire on the ground learns the rhythm of an install without the risk. They feed strings, foot the ladder, run extension cords, and watch how the lead handles a gable. Do not skip it to save a day. The ground day is what makes the roof day go clean.

How fast should a two-person crew get once the new hire is trained?

A two-person crew installs about 1.5x faster than one person, not 2x. Do not plan your route sheet on double speed. A new contractor should still block 4 to 6 hour install windows per home. An experienced crew with a dialed-in pre-build can finish a home in 2 hours or less.

The gap between those two numbers is the shop. The crew that pre-builds finishes early because nobody is bulbing sockets on a ladder. The crew that skips the shop step burns the afternoon on the roof. Your new hire's week one is where you decide which crew you have.

Watch the second week for the speed gain, not the first. A helper who is learning slows the lead down for a few days. That is normal. What you want by the end of week one is a helper who no longer needs to be told what comes next.

How do you know when a new crew member is ready to run point?

They are ready when they pass the quality-control walkthrough on their own install. That means straight lines, every clip seated, every connection weatherproofed, cords landing on a GFCI-protected outlet, and no bulb gaps at the corners. If you have to point out the misses, they stay a helper another week.

• Stand at the curb at dusk. Lines straight? Corners tight? Any dark bulbs or sagging runs?
• Check every plug connection. The weatherproofing method gets taught in the shop and checked on the roof. No tape.
• Confirm the power path. Cords run clean to a GFCI-protected outlet, no splices lying in a gutter.
• Look at the gutters. Nothing bent, nothing drilled, clips seated on the lip.
• Ask them to find their own misses before you say a word. That is the real test.

Sign off in writing. A crew member who passes a walkthrough they ran themselves is a crew member you can send to a house without you. That is the whole point of week one. It is not about filling a seat on the truck. It is about building the person who takes the roof off your back.

Christmas Lights HQ is the supply side of the same system I teach, so every crew that comes through it buys and builds with the same clips, wire, and bulbs, and the week-one checklist does not change from truck to truck. What does your day one look like right now, and where does a new hire cost you the most time?