Five Things To Include In Your Onboarding Pack

An employee onboarding pack is a document, or group of documents, which you share with a new hire to help them gain a deeper, detailed understanding of their new role, company, and team members. The onboarding experience is incredibly significant when it comes to making sure your new employee feels welcome, has access to all the resources necessary to be successful at the new role, as well as giving a positive impression of your company.

As an extra part of your onboarding process, it could be worth considering including your new hire in any casual, non-work related calls or catch ups their team members have. Perhaps you could extend an invite in your email template if you all go to a local cafe once a month for a coffee and catch up? Or maybe every Friday you have a call about your plans for the weekend? Every team and company have different cultures, so there is no need to force something if it would be unnatural for the pre-existing team members, however it could be a good opportunity for the team members and new hire to get to know each other better, making the overall onboarding process and transition smoother.

Another aspect to consider, is that onboarding experience will eventually graduate into being an employee experience, with 93% of employers believe a good onboarding experience is critical in influencing a new employee’s decision whether to stay with the company. There is no use focusing all your energy and resources into one if the other is neglected. While a useful onboarding pack will play a role in the experience of your new employee it will fade out in comparison to an unwelcoming or cold company culture. A key part of your onboarding process is taking it as a chance to reevaluate the employee engagement levels and strategy which your new hire will walk into on their first day, and consider creating a checklist for areas for improvement as well as where you shine.

Deliver the onboarding pack with a friendly welcome email

Alongside your onboarding pack offering your new hire a welcome email is also a key part of giving your new hire a memorable and enjoyable onboarding experience. When drafting up the template for your welcome email it’s up to you to make it unique to your new employee. Include references to a any casual conversations you might’ve had and enjoyed together in their interviews, as well as that you’re excited for them to join the team!

When creating this template it could be worth considering signing off the welcome email from each of the members of your team, to add a personal touch, and also serve as a reminder of the most important names for your new employee to take note of.

Links to information about your company

Even though it’s likely the new hire will already have some foundational knowledge of your company after researching prior to their interviews, including a link to your company website ‘About Us’ page and any other helpful, information resources about the company in your onboarding pack will never be unappreciated. Even if it can simply be used as a point of reference for the new hire during their first few weeks of their onboarding process when they still have a lot to learn and remember. You might like to include a checklist of the resources they should prioritise or that you would prefer them to have read before their first day as an employee.

Directions to relevant office locations

It’s likely you have previously discussed the new hire’s home location and any office locations they would be expected to visit, even if only on occasion. So, providing directions to any and all office locations that the new joiner will expect to visit would be thoughtful. This could be from the closest train or bus station depending on how the joiner plans to travel to work. This is also the perfect opportunity to let them know about any kind of dress code you may have at your company office, or provide a checklist of what they might like to bring with them on their first day. If for example your office doesn’t happen to be in a short walking distance from any cafes or corner shops, it would be good to mention to the new employee, so they can bring a packed lunch.

This could also be a convenient space in your onboarding pack to mention any cafes, lunch spots, corner shops or other venues that might be of interest to your new hire. A crucial part of employee onboarding is making sure the new employee feels as familiarised as possible with their new situation, allowing them to spend their first week focused on picking up their responsibilities and getting to know new colleagues.

Briefly introduce their new colleagues

Introduce the team and other relevant people they’ll be working with as an employee at your company. This can include pictures of the team members so the new hire can recognise them easily, the job titles, a checklist of their core responsibilities and how they would expect to work together.

It could also be a good time in your employee onboarding process to inquire about the new hire’s availability to go for a team dinner with their new team members in the first few weeks. It’s important to make sure this is a process which is smooth and positive not only for your new employee, but also the pre-existing team members. Having a chance to introduce everyone in an environment which isn’t as formal as a welcome email or stressful as an interview makes for a great opportunity to get to know each other better.

An agenda of what to expect on their first day or first week

An unmissable aspect of your onboarding pack is including an agenda for first week or first day in their new role. Offering your new hire a checklist of the activities they can expect during their first day or first week can help alleviate any anxieties they could have during the onboarding process, and allow them time to prepare for any activities which might be out of their comfort zone. We’ve all had some sort of experience in our lives with first day jitters, and would be appreciative to receive this in their welcome email for a new job.

Your new hire will also appreciate if you detail any platforms they’ll be using in their new role. Although it may have been discussed in the interview, your new employee may appreciate the reminder, especially if they have not used some of the platforms before in their previous role. You could offer an introduction and overview of these in your pack as part of the employee onboarding experience, or links to any resources they might find helpful for this. By including this in your welcome email you will inevitably leave a thoughtful impression of yourself and your company with the new employee, contributing to them having a positive onboarding process overall.

How can an Applicant Tracking System help with Employee Onboarding?

Onboarding software can be the perfect tool in creating a tailored, high quality onboarding process for your new employee. Onboarding is a time consuming task which can involve a lot of paperwork and communications. With HR software such as an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) you can automate all welcome emails, onboarding packs, and team coffee hour invites to go out at the perfect time for you.

Hireserve ATS has all the activities and checks your new hire need to go through before their first day. From this point HR or the hiring manager can assign the new starter tasks and manage relevant workflows as part of the onboarding process. Hireserve ATS is an employee onboarding software which can supply IT logins, staff welcome and training videos, your welcome email and all other information your new hire will need covered on their onboarding checklist. This results in a great experience for them, as well as pre-existing staff contributing to both new and established employee experience.

Additionally, with 58% of organisations believing their on onboarding programs focus mainly on processes and paperwork, it’s as important as ever to make sure these aspects on your onboarding checklist are as efficient as possible. Hireserve ATS is integrated with Secured Signing, so your new starter can easily complete documents online. Automated workflows trigger notifications and a thank you email when the documents are completed, and keeps HR and hiring managers updated on the status of the documents at every stage. They are then securely stored online with multiple levels of authentication so the new employee or HR team can access it at their convenience.

An employee onboarding software should provide an end to end experience for all your candidates from the initial application process until they are fully onboard with your company. This ensures that whoever ends up being your new employee out of your pool of applicants will be kept engaged from the beginning of your process. From scheduling their interviews to signing the contract, an ATS allows an efficient and bespoke experience at every stage of your hiring process for both the employer and new employee.

To understand more about how Hireserve ATS can improve your onboarding and hiring processes, request a demo today.