You’ve spent the past few months developing the perfect job description, posting it to only the best boards, interviewing the true cream of the crop, and have finally hired your star candidate. As a company, you are thrilled with your new catch and want the rest of the office to be equally impressed with your new addition.
So how should you get the word out? How should you tell your peers how great this employee truly is? And how can you make the team as excited as you are for this new employee?
Below, we outline our five-point plan for introducing your new employee to your company.
Put it in writing
Perhaps you’ve always had folks that work from home, or perhaps this teleworking thing is brand new, either way, it’s highly likely that the pandemic has pushed attendance in your actual physical office to an all-time low.
When you can’t actually walk someone cubicle to cubicle to make face-to-face introductions, the next best thing you can do is send out an email announcing the new arrival! In this email, you should introduce the candidate, note when they will be starting work, and state where they’ll be working if applicable (such as working from home or in a secondary location).
In the email, you can also note briefly what role they’ll be filling or project they’ll be heading up, and even a quick overview of what they’re job duties will include to help folks understand where they’ll fit in. You can also mention where the name of their last employer or last role (if it provides context to their work at the company), their academic background, and even any notable skills that they may be bringing to the table.
Sign off the email, which will also be sent to the new employee in question, by mentioning that everyone is very excited to have them joining the company and they look forward to making in-person introductions as soon as possible.
Boast on a bulletin
If you have a strong physical presence in the office, it’s a great idea to post the name of your new arrival on a central bulletin board. It’s a fun idea to ask the employee ahead of time to share where they are from, where they went to school, and perhaps even a few fun facts to make the posting a bit more interesting, as well as serve as ice breakers with other employees.
If you have too many locations, or you simply don’t have enough butts in seats, consider adding a virtual bulletin to your company newsletter to help formally introduce your new employee displaying the same info and fun facts, as well as the new hire’s contact info so folks can reach out and make a connection as they see fit
Let them eat!
One of the greatest ways to encourage employee bonding is to let them eat! Rather than host a company-wide chow down, which would be overwhelming to say the least, consider doing a team lunch or breakfast with a different team each day.
By breaking it down in this manner, your new hire can meet just about everyone across the company, but in bite size pieces where they can have meaningful conversations and actually make some good connections. These lunches can also give your new hire a chance to learn about the individual departments and how they factor into the company, adding to their overall orientation experience.
Meet the team
Of course, meeting everyone in the company is important, but getting to know the other members of the team that you are going to be working with for the foreseeable future is crucial. During the first week, if not on the first day, the leaders of the team should be on hand to introduce the new employee to the entire team (either in person or virtually) and should plan some fun activities to help break the ice and get the hire to foster connections with those that they will be working the closest with.
We also recommend that during this time, the team begin pairing up the employee with various standouts on the team to help begin teaching some of the key points of the new role so that the employee can begin to ramp up and feel more confident about the job they are going to undertake.
Loop them in
Introducing your new employee to the rest of your company is one thing, but should the position call for it, you may also want to go ahead and introduce them to your clients.
If you’ve hired someone to take over a sales territory or handle accounts, you should go ahead and send an abbreviated version of the welcome email to your clients introducing your new hire, mentioning which department or team they’ll be working with, and letting your clients know what they can expect from this new hire.
For example, if they should be the new point of contact, let them know in the email how they can reach your new hire via email and phone.
How do you introduce new employees to your company? Let us know in the comments.
