A guide to welcoming new employees to your company

We’ve all been there. We are walking into our new job, nervous as anything, wondering how it will go when you meet your new colleagues. You feel like the onus is on you, but realistically it should be on the employer to make you feel welcome. Welcoming a new employee isn't the hardest task, but it sure is important. Here are some great ways to welcome a new employee into your company…

How to welcome a new employee in your company?

Personal Colleague

Whenever you’ve got a new hire coming in, think about assigning them a buddy to help get them through the first day or so. Get this person to be the new hire’s first port of call. Show them round the place, show who’s who, show what’s where, go out for lunch and give them the information they need or ask for. As a note, although this buddy system is aimed towards an individual, other colleagues should take their time to help out and start building a relationship with the new employee.

Company Culture Immersion

There are loads of ways to immerse your employee into the new company culture. A mission and values presentation. A brief history lesson on the company.

Warn Your Staff

You need to let your staff know about the new employee. Ask them to introduce themselves and make the new recruit feel welcome. Maybe you could let your employees know a few bits about the new recruit, so they feel more at home when they first came. Maybe their name and where they come from?

Lunch and Learn

This is a great way to make the employee feel wanted on the first day, but also offers them an opportunity to meet some of their colleagues. On their first day, don’t let the employee go and eat on their own. Get someone to take the colleague out to really get to know them, or if you prefer get a group of you to go out.

End of Week Review

We talk about feedback all the time. It should be an important part of the process from the word ‘go’. By the end of the first week, the employee will have answered twenty questions but still have a million unanswered ones. Go through an end of week review, covering all the employee wants to know, finding out how they are feeling and how you see the next few weeks playing out.

Have a Proper Process in Place

Onboarding. Onboarding. Onboarding. A super important process, and one you need to get right. This should be in place long before the new recruit comes. Its an important process to ensure engagement and motivation at your organization. We’ve written extensively about onboarding and recommend giving some of the articles a quick read.

It's particularly daunting for a new hire starting at your organization. The pressure of new work, new colleagues, new managers and a new environment. Help welcome them better into your organization with these tips!