The companies who are getting first impressions right. Discover 10 examples of welcome packs for new employees.
It’s never easy onboarding new team members, particularly during a pandemic! Businesses are merging recruitment, onboarding and employer branding to not only attract the right talent, but to keep them as part of their team too. To do this, they’re coming up with new and creative ways to develop an onboarding experience that reflects their company culture—and for good reason too. In a study by Glassdoor, they found that great employee onboarding can improve team retention by 82% and increase productivity by up to 70%.
One of these new and creative ways comes in the form of welcome packs (some people call them welcome kits, onboarding packs or welcome boxes.) Either way, the premise is the same—new employees arrive at their desk on their first day to a pack of useful information and fun gifts. Surprise! 🎉
What’s the point in a welcome pack?
- It makes your new employee feel welcome and valued
- It gives them all the information they need to get started
- It can help them to meet other members of your team
- It allows them to set up while they wait for onboarding meetings
- It makes them feel excited to join the company
- It adds to the overall onboarding experience
How a Virtual Assistant can help with an onboarding welcome pack
Let’s face it, in the midst of recruitment, sometimes it’s the little things (like welcome packs) that get deprioritised. So, an extra pair of hands—like our ibLE experts—can take care of the fine details, so you and your team can focus on finding the right person. Here’s how a VA can help…
- Research what other companies are doing (more on that below)
- Curate, write and proofread the necessary onboarding information that should be included in the pack
- Source suppliers for items to pop in the box
- Source graphic designers and printers for any branded merch
What should you have in a welcome pack?
It’s different for every business (the more relevant to your brand, the better) but really, it should contain items and information that are genuinely useful for your new start, or at least, make them smile. Here’s what we’d have in ours…
- Reusable water bottle
- Reusable coffee cup
- Notebooks
- Favourite sweets (find this out before they start)
- Keys/fob and lanyard
- Info sheet – logins (eg: computer, email, Slack etc)
- Map with team names (eg: who’s next to you)
- To-do list and agenda for their first day (eg: meetings to have, what to set up)
Still looking for inspiration? Here are 10 examples of great welcome packs…
Brainly
Brainly is a knowledge-sharing community where students and experts put their heads together to crack their toughest homework questions.
The sweatshirt is great for chilly days in the office and the name on the welcome booklet is a nice touch. Brainly, you’re worthy of your name.
Syndicode
In addition to knowing a thing or two about digital development and design, Syndicode know great stationery when they see it.
Their welcome packs contain these Moleskine-inspired notebooks (with branded stickers to customise) and now we wish we had one.
Atlassian
Photo by James Whitehead on Instagram
“I don’t start at @atlassian until ~4th November, yet I just received this amazing welcome pack express post! Unwrapped it straight away at @steamenginecoffee What an onboarding experience thus far… It may not seem like much but compared to the environment I’m coming from, this is huge. It’s the little things that add up to make a big difference.” — James Whitehead
Brand values help everyone in your business to make decisions that are in-line in your business’s purpose, so it’s worthwhile to make them known, right?
We love how software company, Atlassian keep their new team members in the loop before they start by sending their welcome packs in the weeks leading up to their first day—making them feel welcome before they even set foot in the office.
LiveChat
There’s a tradition at LiveChat where on their first week, new starts will make a cake for their team (when the office is open!). So, in addition to some branded swag, LiveChat’s onboarding box (designed by their in-house Graphic Designer, Jędrzej Rayski) also has a hidden cake recipe. A tiny touch, that ends in cake. We’re sold.
KakaoPay
A desk organiser, a toothbrush, stickers, a bag hook for the side of your desk—Korean digital wallet company, KakaoPay have created one of the slickest welcome packs we’ve seen yet.
In a nod to their financial roots, KakaoPay’s Senior Brand Experience Designer, Theo Grape, designed four bespoke notebooks that are inspired by global currencies. Not only did it make its way onto our top 10, it also won a Red Dot Design Award.
Ogilvy & Mather
How do you get your entire team to read a game-changing book by one of your original founders? You make it tangible. That’s exactly what the Ogilvy RedWorks Cape Town team did.
Their entire ‘Induction Pack’ is based on David Ogilvy’s book ‘The Eternal Pursuit of Unhappiness’ which has arguably helped to shape the advertising industry as we know it. The global marketing agency’s new team members all get a copy of the book and a pack that visualises Ogilvy’s eight creative habits.
Frontex
Modern software companies and advertising agencies lend themselves well to fun onboarding packs, but what if you’re in a slightly more serious industry?
Frontex—The European Border and Coast Guard Agency—prove that you can be on the more formal side of professional, but still have a welcome pack that’s engaging, useful and not completely boring.
GoDaddy
Web hosting company, GoDaddy created a custom print for their welcome packs and made their very own style of tote bags, notebooks, reusable cups and caps! Plus, they included a handy deck of cards for breaking the ice.
Hotcha
Chinese takeout franchise, Hotcha, don’t exist anymore, but the legend of their welcome pack lives on. First task of a new-starts day? Learn how to use chopsticks. What fun tasks could you give your newbie?
Element3
Element 3 are on board with onboarding packs, in fact, they wrote an entire blog on why company swag boosts company culture.
They also walk-the-walk, by developing a unique welcome pack of their own that sends each new hire on a personal ‘mission’. Highlights include a personal welcome message from their president, Tiffany Sauder, a vintage motel keychain with their key to the office and a four week onboarding mission checklist filled with tasks—both fun and serious—to help them get settled.
Looking for someone to help with that welcome pack? That’s where we can help. Get in touch.
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