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Company culture is all about the behaviors and attitudes of an organization. Your approach to company culture emphasizes how your team works together. This sense of teamwork will allow for both greater results in the workplace and improved morale, keeping employees loyal to the cause. And new hires should be able to feel this from the moment they start working with you.
Make those new hires believe that they are important to your business’s success. Giving them employee onboarding gifts help accomplish this because their first day on the job should be a celebration. If you are fostering company culture, you should seek to engage with your employees and make them feel special from day one. Let’s explore how you can best situate employees into their new roles.
Core Elements of a Great Company Culture
Studies show that only 18% of companies put a greater focus on customer retention than acquisition. Meanwhile, only 40% put an equal focus on the two. You need to ensure that your business is taking the right measures to increase the lifetime value of both your customers and your employees. Employee retention is important because it promotes the success of your business. By having an effective retention strategy with delightful perks along the way, such as employee onboarding gifts and other corporate gift-giving, you can actually reduce the costs that come with recruiting and onboarding.
Shared Vision & Values
Brand marketing emphasizes portraying value to your customers, prospective employees, and all other stakeholders alike. What are the goals that you are committed to? How do you plan to meet those goals? When you develop your products and services, are you keeping those goals in mind throughout the process? You can’t neglect the vision that you claimed to have. Otherwise, people won’t be able to trust your company, which will be bad for business. That’s why employee onboarding gifts are so effective. They showcase the value that you put into the people you hire, which is essential to building your reputation internally. The more valued your talent feels, the more likely they are to be a champion for your company.
Comfortable Environment
Environment design, like using lots of natural light, will aid in improving the mood of your employees. Introducing plants into the workplace is also a good idea. However, the environment doesn’t just involve the physical office—it also encapsulates the energy that is created there. When someone walks into your office, they shouldn’t experience a sense of dread. They need to be able to bond with those around them and enjoy their workspace. Other ways to make them feel comfortable when they come into the office include hosting fun team events, celebrating personal occasions, and recognizing their efforts with unique employee appreciation gifts.
Strong Communication
Make sure that your new hires feel that their voices are being heard. It shouldn’t just be all about the managers and supervisors. You took on these fresh-faced employees for a reason—they have innovative ideas themselves. Everyone in your team will be able to expand their skills as they learn from one another. With that in mind, allowing for open communication within the workplace means that operations are going to be run more smoothly, as well as that there is healthier collaboration. Without having trust within the walls of your business, you can’t expect to have trust from outsiders.
Caring Leadership Team
How senior leadership act toward the rest of the team sets the tone for the office. Your mood is contagious. And if you aren’t appearing to be passionate about the mission of the business, why would your employees care? The simple answer is: they won’t. A good leader brings out the best in their employees by motivating them under the priorly mentioned shared vision and values. Whether you are delivering employee onboarding gifts or holding an event for longtime donors, continue to build morale and enthusiasm around your company’s name.
“Gen Z is reported to change jobs at a 134% higher rate today than they did in 2019. How will you encourage your talent to stay?”
Phases of the Employee Onboarding Process
Employee onboarding can be a stressful time. While everyone else in the company knows exactly what they need to do, now you have someone who, regardless of their skillset and corporate background, needs to get acclimated. If you want to improve your employee retention strategies, getting them excited about the job from the very beginning is necessary. Otherwise, you risk a high turnover rate. This will result in not just a decrease in productivity, but also a cultural impact with other employees wanting to know what made that person leave.
Offer Acceptance
The first step of employee onboarding involves actually getting the worker to join your company. An offer release will happen after prospective employees have been recruited. You may schedule a phone call, video chat, or in-person meeting to go over the policies, procedures, and expectations. Once locking down your open positions, consider sending welcome gifts to new employees. It will excite new hires to know that they are already a respected member of your team. Using a 3D popup card as your official letter of acceptance is an impressive and surprising way to forge an immediate relationship with them.
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New Hire Orientation
Next comes day one on the floor. You are going to provide your incoming employees with an overview of what it’s like to work at your business. Make sure that they feel welcomed by your leadership team from the very beginning. Considering they will likely be nervous, introducing them to everyone, both in-person and via email, could take away some of the stress. Those first few weeks are a crucial period in their time with your company, so you cannot afford to discourage them with a poor company culture. Your current staff needs to be prepared to showcase exactly what mission your company has set out to accomplish.
Role-Specific Training
Get your hire comfortable in their new position. Your onboarding process should be designed with an easy transition in mind. Therefore, they should have the resources and tools at their disposal to perform their job as accurately as possible. This will set them up for long-term success. Where general onboarding showcases the company culture that is common to everyone on your team, role-specific training involves an emphasis on the culture of a department. Essentially, they will find out what it means to perform at their expected level. This should also be done for employees that receive promotions.
Becoming a Teammate
Just because workers enjoy those first few weeks at your business doesn’t mean that they will stick around for several years. This is especially true for millennials and Gen Z, considering they are known for job-hopping. In fact, Gen Z is reported to change jobs at a 134% higher rate (www.axios.com/2022/02/25/gen-z-great-resignation-generation-job-hopping) today than they did in 2019. This rate increased for millennials, as well, but only by 24%. To reduce this number within your company, encourage team building throughout the year. This way, your staff can continue to connect over time, instead of just on day one.
Employee Onboarding Gifts for Your Welcome Kit
You want to show off your brand in an effective way. When you come up with your employee onboarding gifts, they should be a reflection of what it’s like to work at your company. Depending on the work model your company is using, you can either send hires these gifts through direct mail or give them in person on their first official day. Regardless of how you do it, make your new employees feel happy about getting hired and confident in their position.
Branded T-Shirt
Give your new workers something to wear into the office on casual days or whenever they are lounging around the house. Having custom apparel gives employees a sense of unification, both with the company itself and their peers in the office. This employee onboarding gift is an inexpensive option that is quick to produce. You can create your branded t-shirt on sites like Custom Ink or VistaPrint, where a range of colors and comfortable styles are available. If you have enough sizes in stock from the start, these can last you some time.
Personalized Drinkware
Mugs, tumblers, and water bottles are some of the most popular promotional products and employee onboarding gifts. After all, everyone needs their pick-me-up drink of choice in the morning to get them going through the day. Hundreds of styles are available to choose from. They are also incredibly convenient and portable. Because mugs, tumblers, and water bottles are easy to take with you, employees can actually advertise on the go. Those around them could catch sight of your logo and be inspired to find out more about you.
Office Supplies
Whether your employees are working in the office or remotely, they will appreciate having the necessary supplies for their workday. What is it that they are going to need, or else could use outside of working hours? Get pens that have your business’s name up the side, PopSockets with your logo for their phones, and a notepad with your branded colors. You can also provide customized stationery kits or desk organizers. When you are coming up with your employee onboarding gift kit, the only rule of thumb is to not supply them with items that don’t have any relevance to their job.
Unique 3D Popup Cards
People love being told that their individual contributions are appreciated. Let your employees know how excited you are to have them with you through a 3D popup card. These cards can be given at any time of year to express your gratitude. But they can also be used as employee onboarding gifts to say thanks for taking a chance on your company. Within your card, use an image that is genuinely meaningful to your company, as well as to them. This could be your personalized logo, a replica of your building, or a symbol that ties in with your products and services.
Get in touch with Awesome 3D Cards to fulfill your employee onboarding gift needs. Let us create a design that is entirely customized for your business. We have worked with a variety of industry professionals to effectively showcase their business in popup form. Whether you need insurance agency marketing ideas or real estate agent gifts for clients, our team can help.