What an event—new talent is joining your rows! Isn’t it exciting?! Your corporate family is growing richer and larger with new employees stepping into the workplace, physically or virtually.
It’s time to welcome them to your team with warm smiles and open hearts. Actually, a friendly smile or a helpful co-worker would make all the difference for 17% of new hires.
Yet—
A single smile may not light up the fire of excitement and appreciation.
How else can you welcome a new crew member to your corporate family? And what’s the point of it all, anyway?
Let’s figure that out.
Why Welcome a New Employee?
Today’s business landscape has drastically changed. However, one thing remains constant—the need to welcome new hires!
Here’s the problem: The pandemic has paved the way for the rise of remote work, with nearly 25% more employees opting for it. Meanwhile, hybrid work setups have increased by over 15%, and traditional office work has decreased by almost 25%.
Now, it’s easy to see employees with hybrid work arrangements. However, the in-office versus remote work setup has shifted dramatically. Employees who were working remotely are now in-office, while hybrid working stays consistent year-over-year:
What do these new work arrangements imply for onboarding? You need to adjust your approach to welcoming newly hired employees!
The key here is to make them feel—-yes, welcome and valued right at the outset!
Not only will they have a good impression of the workplace culture, but they will instantly feel they belong from day one. That can translate to employee engagement and retention in the long run!
However, there’s a line drawn between welcoming employees offline and online:
The former requires you to take your onboarding approach to the next level, while the latter requires harnessing the power of digital tools and communications technologies.
Heed our advice: The benefits of welcoming new employees strategically are multifold.
That said, here’s why you should rethink your onboarding approach and use more creative ideas to welcome new workers:
- Lower the onboarding pressure and stress. An unfamiliar work environment is an ocean of stressors and unknowns. Even not figuratively, 81% of new employees are overwhelmed with data, and 38% feel lost in their freshly landed positions. Then, there’s that icy-cold fear of fitting into the team. You can reduce it by creating a more welcoming environment during onboarding.
- Evoke a feeling of belongingness. New hires may feel like an imposter at first. This is all the more true for remote employees who have no physical contact with other team members. However, once you establish a positive atmosphere of support and care from day one, the feeling of awkwardness will be substituted with belonging: “Phew, they accept me to the team.“
- Promote inclusion and retention. When welcoming new employees, you integrate them into the team, sand down the rough edges, and melt the ice in communication, promoting a more diverse and inclusive workplace where everyone feels accepted, regardless of their:
- Gender
- Cultural background
- Education
- Age
- Social status, etc.
This impacts employee retention directly. Reflect on this fact: Over one-third of LGBTQ+ workers have already left their companies because of misunderstanding and exclusion.
- Strengthen employer branding. A pleasant onboarding experience grows respect and forms a good feeling about the employer brand: 78% of employees reported that in Talmundo’s study. Such a positive attitude encourages workers to promote the company as a reputable and caring employer and ignites word-of-mouth popularity.
7 Ideas to WelcomE a New Hire
There is pressure when it comes to onboarding. A recent Paychex (payroll company) survey found that only about half of employees (52%) feel satisfied with their latest onboarding experience.
Gone are the days when you’d simply wait for new hires to come to the office and greet them with a warm welcome. Today, you need to ‘up’ your welcome approach, whether via your physical or virtual office.
Why? 70% of employees claim that onboarding can make or break a new hire’s experience.
…And creating an epic welcome is among the top five elements employees believe would improve the onboarding experience.
However, it’s all the more necessary to make remote employees feel welcome. Why? After onboarding, they are more likely to feel disoriented and devalued than on-site workers. The statistics don’t lie:
That’s why you’ll do what it takes to make employees feel a sense of belonging and build trust from the start. That way, they’ll engage with others and develop good relationships with the entire team. More importantly, they’ll choose to stay in your company for good.
So, how do you welcome new hires to your team? Here are seven innovative and creative ideas for you:
1. Hand out welcome boxes.
A welcome box or welcome kit is a selection of resources, goods, and presents you give new workers once they jump on board.
You can fill it with:
- Welcome letter
- Office supplies
- Employee handbook
- Brochure with the company’s story and corporate values
- Contact list (HR manager, IT support, and teammates)
- Tech accessories (laptop, mouse pad, charger)
- Inspirational quotes, etc.
For Reyansh Mestry, Head of Marketing at TopSource Worldwide, “A thoroughly prepared welcome box is often a determining factor in the new employee’s experience. It facilitates onboarding and arms your new teammates with everything they need to kick off, showing that you care about their successful work launch.”
Indeed, it may create a memorable first impression on new hires. Besides, adding your brand’s merchandise, such as a company-branded mug, tote bag, T-shirt, etc., will enhance your employer’s identity.
For example:
Look at this branded welcome kit from TopSource Worldwide.
2. Give a social media shout-out.
Now, you might want to drop your newbie a line or two of “Welcome to the team” on social platforms, even if you’ve already done it via your corporate newsletter, intranet, chat, or other communication channels.
Social media shout-outs contribute to public recognition and boost the sense of societal belonging. It’s a conventional, globally accepted method to say: ‘You’re a valuable part of our community; you belong here.’ This makes a new worker feel their affiliation to a certain social group and their self-worth as its member.
Structure your social media post with a “Welcome!” shout-out like this:
- Welcoming words in the caption (e.g., So happy you’re here! or Best wishes on your first day!)
- Employee’s name and photo
- Job role
- Employer branding elements (colour, logo)
- Hashtags: #welcometotheteam, #welcomeaboard, etc.
However, it’s not a mandatory requirement. There are other ways to show your appreciation.
Chris Aubeeluck, Head of Sales and Marketing at Osbornes Law, says, “You may welcome a new team member through social media re-engagement. What I mean is reposting their social media posts where they share about joining your company or commenting on it and expressing your words of excitement.”
See how the Osbornes Law team did it on LinkedIn.
3. Trigger an open talk with an icebreaker.
Before you roll your eyes at this idea, icebreakers actually work for effective team-building! And they do break that thick ice between the newly hired member and the rest of the team.
Morgan Taylor, Co-Founder of Jolly SEO, claims, “Ice-breaking activities often serve as the smoothest paths to welcome new employees to the team. These may be fun onboarding quizzes and getting-to-know-you activities to help freshers and long-timers bond and build relationships without stiffness and uneasiness.”
Here is a list of team-building exercises to onboard and engage new hires in a non-cheesy way:
- “Would-you-rather” quiz: Employees ask each other “would-you-rather” questions. For example, would you rather have more money or time?
- Guess who: Workers pen down one fact about them and drop it into the anonymous box. Then, they randomly pick the facts and guess who this person might be.
- One-word team story: Team members say one word in turn, crafting an extraordinary story as long as possible.
- Group map: Every worker pins the birthplace on a physical or an online map (if you onboard new employees virtually).
- Speed drawing: Employee pairs are given two minutes to draw the answer. For example, draw the most embarrassing moment in your life.
You may pick any other activity, whichever you prefer.
For example:
The American Red Cross organisation conducts diversity and inclusion exercises in teams. One of them is a seven-word biography. In only seven words, Red Crossers write their short bios, like this: Jail time, reformed, married, millionaire, happy!
4. Organise a virtual tour.
This tactic mainly caters to the needs of remote employees who join distributed teams.
It’s a super interactive approach to introducing newcomers to your corporate culture, as you can virtually walk them around the departments and the leadership team.
For that, choose a video conferencing tool (Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Google Meet), schedule an online workplace tour, conduct it live with narration and commentary, and urge the new worker to ask questions all the way along.
Alternatively, suppose you can’t do it online. In that case, Alex Rhodes, Founder at AutoNoMail.com, recommends sending pre-recorded video tours in employee welcome emails for a more self-paced experience.
He says, “A self-led virtual tour gives new employees more freedom to explore the office and spend as much time as they want to explore every room. You may offer an even deeper immersion in all workplace nooks with a 360-degree virtual tour, which can be taken with VR glasses.”
For example:
Below is a 360° virtual tour of the intensive care unit at Barnsley Hospital.
5. Think up special awards.
How about awarding new employees for their particular achievements?
Awards can make new hires feel recognised from the very start of their journey at your company.
Consider various types of awards for new team members:
- Icebreaker Award
- Swift Starter Award
- Innovative Newcomer Award
- Bright Beginner Award
- Safety Excellence Award, etc.
For example:
Suppose a new employee followed accident-free standards and demonstrated exceptional workplace safety performance. Why not recognise these efforts with the Safety Excellence Award? This title will highlight the employee’s commitment to maintaining a safer work environment and avoiding personal injuries at the job site (e.g., accidents at construction sites).
It may be a truly significant achievement. Here’s why. Freshly hired employees are more vulnerable to occupational injuries and four times more likely to file a work injury claim in their first month at the workplace.
6. Celebrate the first week/month milestone.
“Congrats! You’ve reached a one-week work milestone!”
This could be your message to new staffers after their first work week.
Let them feel it’s a worthy accomplishment, acknowledge their hard work, and motivate them to keep pushing forward.
Several milestone celebration ideas are:
- A brief recognition speech during an in-person or virtual meeting
- A one-week or one-month milestone award
- A gift card
- A team lunch
- A fast team-building activity (e.g., Marshmallow Tower or Team Jigsaw Puzzle)
Also, it would be wise to mark upcoming employee anniversaries in your corporate calendar or employee recognition programme (if you have one).
7. Ask how it feels.
Asking new workers about their feelings during onboarding is as simple as it sounds: How do you feel about your first day/week/month at our company?
It demonstrates that you’re not indifferent to their mental health and overall well-being and genuinely want them to feel comfortable and welcomed.
However, Bo Cicak, a Chiropractor Doctor at Neurogan Health, believes onboarding surveys can reveal a broader picture and let you sense the new team member’s pulse more clearly.
He remarks, “An onboarding survey isn’t just a handy tool to capture feedback from the newest employees about their impressions and physical and emotional comfort during the first workdays. It’s also a highly effective technique to notice the gaps or obstacles in the onboarding process and see how to improve it.”
Here are several questions you can incorporate into an employee pulse survey after onboarding:
- How would you describe your overall experience with the onboarding process?
- Did you feel adequately welcomed and supported by your team leader and colleagues?
- On a scale from one to ten, how engaged were you during your first week at work?
- How comfortable are you with the tools you use in your role?
- Is there anything you would like to suggest to improve your experience?
How To Sustain a Welcoming Culture for Long-term Engagement
At this point, you know what it takes to welcome newly hired employees. More importantly, you’ve gained creative and innovative ideas for doing so. However, the work doesn’t stop there: Not only should you welcome employees, but you also have to keep them engaged all throughout.
Here’s the catch: Only a quarter of employees (23%) are engaged at work. About 62% are disengaged, while 15% are actively disengaged.
The graph below paints a clear picture of the worldwide employee engagement from 2010 up to the present:
Employee engagement is crucial to boosting workplace productivity, customer satisfaction, and business success. However, welcoming new hires is one thing; promoting long-term engagement is another.
That said, here’s how to sustain a welcoming culture in the workplace:
- Set professional goals and career development plans. Ask employees what they aim to achieve: Is it to be regularised after six months, get promoted after two years, or take a managerial role in five years? These goals help future-proof their careers for long-term success. With a clear vision and mission, your employees will engage more in your organisation.
- Implement emplo yee performance management. Start by setting key performance indicators (KPIs) focusing on efficiency, quality, and customer satisfaction (CSAT). These key metrics serve as benchmarks to guide employees in their day-to-day tasks. Then, you can track their performance to keep them engaged and help them succeed.
- Establish regular communication and collaboration. Effective communication entails a clear and consistent exchange of information among leaders and employees. It involves actively listening, showing genuine empathy, adapting communication styles, and promoting a culture of collaboration to boost engagement levels.
- Offer training programmes and learning opportunities. Promoting a culture of continuous learning is essential in your company or organisation. Provide soft and hard skills training, reskilling and upskilling programmes, and other forms of learning. Ultimately, L&D training is key to fostering career development and employee engagement.
- Create an employee feedback loop and take action. This feedback loop helps create and enhance your employee voice in your organisation. However, it requires taking critical steps towards improving areas for improvement. About 65% of employees are willing to receive feedback, and 75% say feedback is valuable in the workplace.
- Promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). There’s no denying the value of DEI in the age of personalised engagement. Developing DEI policies is vital to gaining, training, and retaining a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workforce. Not only is it HR’s responsibility, but this initiative also involves all stakeholders.
You’re All Set to Welcome and Onboard New Workers
Welcoming fresh hires on board is about more than just their first days. It’s about setting the stage and creating a positive atmosphere for continuous engagement and long-term employee success.
So, it’s high time to reboot the onboarding process and greet new employees with even more warmth and energy, making them feel at home.
Author: Catherine Schwartz – HARO & Content Outreach
Photo credit: StockCake
