Company culture audit || onboarding

Perfect for: companies wanting to do a quick culture audit, with practical ways to build culture in the day-to-day life of your company.

How someone’s first few days are shapes their whole experience at the company. It can be scary, with reminders of that first-day-of-school nerves. Here are some ways to make your new team member integrate quickly into the team…

BEFORE DAY ONE

• Post your new team member a card to say you’re looking forward to them joining the team! You could make it into a package by posting them a book too.
• Arrange to send a taxi to collect them from home on their first day.
• Ensure they know what time to be where on their first day, and who they’ll be meeting.

ON DAY ONE

• Make sure their desk is clean, with what they need on it — laptop, notebook + pen, welcome card, key fob / keys, a new joiner pack as their go-to for general information
• Match them up with someone in the team who is tasked with looking out for them — get them to take the new starter for lunch on the company
• Make sure the team all makes a priority to introduce themselves
• Do a shorter work day on their first day (i.e. 10am-4.30pm)
• Have drinks in the office at the end of their first day (or first week) — a nice tough would be to have their favourite drink on the menu

IN THE FIRST FEW WEEKS

• Book in a couple of catch up coffees with whoever they’ve been matched up with to check they’re getting on well.

Company culture is a real buzz word, but it can be broken down. Aside from the nuts and bolts of a job, people need two things from their workplace:

• to feel appreciated and valued
• to have some sort of community.

Both of these are incredibly simple but also notoriously hard to achieve on a genuine level.

It’s got to be led from the bottom up, with the buy-in from the leadership. And is played out in the day-to-day life of the company.