How to Welcome your New Hire to Your Team Even Before They Start!!!

Well, many congratulations! You’ve conquered the tough part: hired a new perfect candidate to join your esteemed workforce.

Optimistically they’ll be starting off soon in their new role and you can get your skates on all the thrilling goals you’ve set for them. But hello before their first day arrives, are you prepared as a manager to welcome your new employee with open arms?

There are a few things to be considered, while some are more logical—like figuring out where they’ll be situated and what will be their work in their first week, who will they report to.

Other things would be ensuring that the fresher feels appreciated, acknowledged, included, and comfortable coming into his new work environment. Many of the below tips are drawn from things done at Creative Social Intranet’s software programs when new hires join the company.

Things to do the week before they arrive.

1. Connect with Them on LinkedIn

Why not let them into your professional network when you are about to work together? In addition, this can be a great opportunity or platform to welcome them before they’ve even entered the office. You can include a pleasant nice note like:

Hey [So and So], just wanted to state I’m so excited to work with you!Or
Welcome to the My Company team! We’re all excited to have you joining us.

2. Create an Employee Onboarding Document

This is almost certainly the most important step you need to take when you hire someone new. This document will include:

• Your objectives and goals for the person’s first 30, 60, and 90 days.
• A detailed script of tasks you expect them to do.
• Any important documents, links, calendars, or logins they’ll require.
• Any meetings and briefing sessions they’re expected to attend in their first few weeks or regularly.
• Names, contact information, and relevant details of team members and co-workers they’ll be working with

Luckily for you, we have the perfect onboarding template created by Creative Social Intranet; this template is best and finely created to help the newest team members get situated.

3. Note down Initial Questions

It’s quite possible that a pool of questions, ideas, and opportunities crosses your mind for the new employee. Instead of letting those thoughts getaway, it’s better to start a document for jotting down anything that comes to mind. It may or may not be required when the person actually starts, but you will feel confident you’ve covered everything in a written document.

4. Send Them an Email

The best bosses in business try this!

When to send an email to new hires before they start to tell them how happy you are that they’re joining your team, it makes them very much excited for their new adventure. Email can cover some important stuff too like their official date and time of joining, company dress code or culture, relevant required documents like their passport or ID, or can even provide their first-day schedule.

5. Getting Their Desk placed in Order

Answer the following queries to save 3 hours of their first day in helping them in settling down.
Is their desk space clean and spacious? Is there any other equipment—a keyboard, mouse, USB port, extension cord, or filing cabinet they need that you can provide? Is there an email account set up? Have you set up their internal chat system or other important programs they’ll need access to?

6. Hand him over all Relevant Documents

Relevant documents may have been included in your email to the new hire, but it makes sense to share any other important documents you would want new hires to review in advance in a separate new email. This could be your company’s employee directory handbook and benefits packages or onboarding document.

7. Providing them with a “Mentor” in the office

If your company has a buddy program, every new hire is given a buddy that they look up to in their first week to talk about our company policies and mingle around within the office. You can also consider pairing your new hire with a “mentor” outside your team. This will help the new hire to get to know others from other teams within the company, and it also gives them another opportunity to ask questions they might be afraid to ask their manager who they barely know.

8. Setting aside time for new hires to set up Any Important Meetings

Just as it’s important to prepare the new hire for getting him onboarded, the managers also need to prepare themselves for doing the employee onboarding well. Training a new employee takes time hence it’s smart to set aside time slots when managers will be working closely with this new person to get the rest of the work done. This will include scheduling one-on-one meetings almost every day in their first week, making time for any training sessions they’ll need to attend, reserving any conference rooms required, and arranging video chat works if you’re onboarding a remote employee.

9. Arranging a Team Lunch/Tea, Coffee/Drinks breaks

It is important getting to know your employee as a person and also let the rest of your team get to know him, too. Schedule an outing (or two) for your team to grab lunch, coffee, or drinks together so that you provide your new employee with an opportunity to bond with his colleagues outside the office. It’s not about showing off but rather being the sort of boss who also values friendship and fun as much as hard work. Not only is it a treat way to splurge on the company card, but it also instantly shatters any awkwardness felt towards one another.

Check all these factors are on your Employee onboarding program list on your Creative Social Intranet, and be assured that your new employee will kick start off on the finest possible note—and so will you!