Welcome Box Ideas: How to Personalize It for New Hires

A welcome box is the perfect chance to introduce a new hire to your company's culture and values. We recently wrote about what such a gift accomplishes. Today we'll look at how a personalized approach to welcome gifts can support onboarding, build positive experiences for new employees, and strengthen their bond with the company.

The welcome box and personalization as a trend

A unique, personalization-driven customer experience is something more and more companies focus on — global brands leading the way. Some have become masters of it, like Netflix, which knows exactly who its users are, what they like, and what they need. People even talk about the Netflix Experience. What is it?

The Netflix Experience is a consumer-brand relationship built on excellent communication and, above all, a personalized experience.

Personalization is a trend we're increasingly used to as consumers. By taking an individual approach to their customers, many brands earn loyalty and become more competitive in the market.

Time for a Netflix Experience at work

So what if we brought these practices into the workplace? Personalization in HR is a great way to build positive employee experiences.

Unfortunately, research shows that as many as 90% of organizations don't personalize the employee experience.

That's a shame, because sometimes a few simple practices are enough to create a WOW effect. Examples?

• Tailored communication
  None of us likes getting emails about offers we don't care about. We automatically treat them as SPAM. Employees do too! A blanket email to everyone about an internal opening in logistics or marketing won't interest anyone in accounting or IT. Spare them, and match your content to the audience. We'll go even further: pick the specific channel that's most convenient for employees — the company messenger, the intranet, a team call.
• Benefits matched to employee needs
  According to Harvard Business Review, 80% of employees would choose extra benefits over a raise. Clearly this is a key area shaping how comfortable people feel at work. So it's worth giving them room to choose the perks that best fit their current needs. Sounds complicated, but the solution is simple: give employees access to a benefits platform where they can pick from a wide range of non-salary perks.
• A personalized welcome kit
  Greeting a new person in a creative way — before they even officially start — is a great way to build positive experiences as early as preboarding. How do you do it?

How to personalize a welcome box

A welcome kit usually contains several items, which opens up huge personalization potential. A notebook, a hoodie, socks, a tote bag — you can customize virtually the entire contents of the gift, even the packaging! Here are a few ideas.

A handwritten note or a dedication for a specific employee

This is one of the simplest ways to personalize — and it definitely creates a WOW effect. You open your welcome gift and inside there's a handwritten note from your manager. Not some impersonal memo with a manager's signature, but a message written with you, your team, and your role in mind.

Gadgets with the employee's name

It's always nice to get a welcome kit with a personal touch, right? Branded company products are usually a must in a welcome box. Add a mug or notebook with the new hire's name and you'll make them feel even more part of the team.

Gadgets with messages tied to the employee's situation

You can — and should! — also welcome team members you already know well. Returning from parental leave or stepping into a new role after reskilling are great moments to hand over a welcome package too. And there are many more such occasions! A message on a gadget can creatively reference the recipient's role or position as well.

A welcome box built around a passion

If you know what a new employee is into, you've got another ace up your sleeve (or rather, in their welcome gift). When someone active and sporty joins, they'll surely appreciate a reusable water bottle or a backpack for their gear. A book or film lover will be more drawn to, say, a fragrant tea to enjoy during long evenings with a favorite read. Just be sure to top it off with a warm, contextual message!

The option to choose the gift

Why limit yourself to personalizing a single item? Let the employee choose the welcome kit they like best. Give them space to make an individual choice, even if it comes down to just two options.

Welcome box — give people a choice

By giving employees a choice, you give them a sense of agency — and at the preboarding stage, very early on. It's a positive signal that strengthens employee experience and engagement in the onboarding process. And what if it all worked like... online shopping? Onboarding as an e-commerce experience is one of the trends increasingly making its way into the workplace. What's more, rolling out such a solution isn't complicated at all. You just need the right tool to automate the whole process. We know a thing or two about that!

With our Gamfi Onboarding app, a new hire can be assigned a task to choose their welcome box. To complete it, they visit a page designed like a simple online store showing the available welcome kits. They can browse each one and then order the set they pick themselves.

The welcome package still has to be delivered

How do you do that comfortably for everyone involved?

Choosing the welcome package is only half the battle. To avoid spoiling the WOW effect before the welcome pack reaches the new hire, you also need to handle the logistics of the whole process. This usually falls on an HR specialist who assembles the kit and faces a ton of repetitive work — from collecting the address and sock or hoodie size to packing the parcel and arranging shipping. Fortunately, all those repetitive duties can be lifted off HR's shoulders through automation.

In the Gamfi app, it's the new employee who fills in their contact and address details in a form. There's also a field for extra information, such as the size or color of the kit's items. All the data the new hire provides flows automatically to wherever the employer designates.

More than a welcome box — automate your entire onboarding

See how to create a better onboarding experience for new hires, free up managers' time, and build more productive HR teams.