There are many things a person needs to know on their first day at a company. And there are a lot of things that they will definitely not remember. To prevent information overload, it’s preferable to keep some essential things for the rest of the week so the fresh hire will pick them all up eventually. So what should they know on their first day?
- Give them an “onboarding buddy”. This should be someone from their team, who they can ask any and all questions to, without feeling like you are bothering them
- The values or the ’’WHY’’ of the company
- The names of their closest coworkers
- The tech stack your department is using
- Where to find the best coffee machine in the building, as well as any other refreshments they can get (fruit, cold water, etc.)
- How the company intranet or CMS works
- The most efficient way to get to their desk
- The information and communication flow of your company (emails, chat, phone calls, etc.)
- Where the bathrooms are (you’d be surprised how often this is an issue)
- What task management solution your team uses to keep track of tasks
- When lunch is
- Their first real work-related task
That’s about it, any other information would probably be too much, and
as we all know, if you go for a handshake tour with every department immediately, you forget the first person’s name while shaking the third one’s hand.