First impressions last. Your grandmother said it, because it was true. Smart lady. When a new employee joins your company, you only have one shot at making them feel comfortable, confident, appreciated and most importantly, like they made the right decision by joining your team. If you get it wrong, that employee is likely to forever, even subconsiously, feel like they are lost, playing catch up or unworthy. Ultimately, its a silly mistake to make, with long term consequences, especially when it is all easily avoidable with a little bit of prep.

This article follows on from “3 must do tips for onboarding a new employee” and gives some extremely practical ideas on how to welcome a new employee into your business. Keep an eye out for further articles for the full onboarding experience. 

First Day Welcome Plan

Lets get started. Firstly, lets review our previous article that spoke about little things like making sure they have a computer, a clean work station, access card, know where to park and have all the right introductions.  How many of us have left our first day at companies feeling irritated because you personally were wandering around trying to organise these things? Ridiculous.

Day 1 should involve the following:

1. A big welcome! Make it fun, have a welcome banner on the persons desk if you can!
2. Provide access cards, or any tags needed and show them when and how to use them.
3. Show them where the toilets are.
4. Show them where to get something to drink. If your office is painful and you have to bring your own coffee cup and supplies, have this available for your new employee. Heck, if you have to spend a couple of dollars buying a mug, its worth it.
5. Set up their computer/equipment. Test logins and that the person has email, internet and access to any programmes they need. Explain how to contact IT support.
6. Do a tour of the building/workspace.
7. Introductions can be really overwhelming depending on the size of your business. On day 1 I prefer to just kind of do a shout out to each department “Hi Everyone! This is Tom and he is the new Analyst. He’ll get around to meeting you all soon!”
8. Have an overview session with HR to cover off on essentials like contracts, bank account info, leave allocations and how to apply for leave, what to do if you need a sick day, any company policies like “no eating at your desk” (yep, this does exist!), dress code, the general process of performance reviews…etc
9. Give the person a big box of sweets or biscuits to keep on their desk….
10. At that munchie time in the morning or afternoon, send out a company wide email saying:        “Hi Everyone,  You got the munchies? Well come and meet Tom. It’s his first day as an analyst and he’s got cookies! Come and say hi and grab one.”

So Tom will have had a busy, productive and most importantly FUN first day. What other tips do you have for making a new employee’s first day great? Leave a comment, we’d love to hear about it.