Employee Appreciation & Retention
12 New Hire Welcome Kit Ideas for Building Culture from Day 1
New hires who receive a welcome kit on Day 1 are nearly twice as likely to feel they completely belong from the moment they start — 34% vs. 18% with no kit at all, according to our 2026 Employee Onboarding Experience Audit. The gap is real. So is the question most HR teams are quietly wrestling with: what do you actually put in the box? [...]
Remote & Hybrid Onboarding: How to Welcome Virtual Employees in Style
New employees who receive a branded welcome kit on Day 1 are nearly twice as likely to say they felt they completely belonged from the start — 34% vs. 18% for those who received no kit at all, according to our 2026 Employee Onboarding Experience Audit. For remote and hybrid hires, where there’s no office to walk into and no team [...]
The Employee Onboarding Checklist Every Manager Needs (2026 edition)
Only 12% of employees strongly agree their company does a great job onboarding new hires, according to Gallup. That number goes a long way toward explaining why 70% of new hires decide whether a job is right for them within the first month, and 29% make that call within their first week (BambooHR, 2023). Strong onboarding is entirely [...]
What Is Employee Onboarding? Process, Steps, and Why It Matters
Only 12% of employees strongly agree that their organization does a great job onboarding new hires. Yet companies with a strong onboarding process improve new hire retention by 82% and productivity by over 70%, according to the Brandon Hall Group. That gap — between how most companies onboard and what great onboarding actually produces — [...]
The State of the Employee Welcome Kit: What HR Teams Are Struggling With — and What Employees Actually Want
Most HR teams assume the biggest barrier to a great Welcome Kit is budget. Our new research says otherwise — and it also reveals exactly what employees wish their kits actually contained. We ran two parallel surveys as part of our 2026 Employee Onboarding Experience Audit: one with 300+ HR professionals responsible for building Welcome [...]
The Welcome Kit Confidence Gap: New Survey Reveals What HR Professionals Really Think About Employee Onboarding Swag
Your new hire’s first day starts before they walk in the door. Most HR teams assume the biggest barrier to a great Welcome Kit is budget. Our 2026 Employee Onboarding Experience Audit — which surveyed 300+ HR professionals responsible for employee Welcome Kits — says otherwise. The #1 challenge isn’t cost. It’s knowing [...]
We Asked 300+ Employees What They Actually Want in a Welcome Kit. Here’s What They Said.
Everyone has an opinion about what should go in a new employee Welcome Kit. The HR team, the office manager, the CEO who saw something on LinkedIn. We decided to ask the people who actually receive them. Our 2026 Employee Onboarding Experience Audit surveyed 300+ employees — people who’ve started new jobs, gone through onboarding, [...]
Employee Gifts and Swag: What to Give, When to Give It, and What to Skip
Recognition matters. When employees feel valued, they stay longer, work harder, and become advocates for your company culture. According to our Company Swag Survey, more than three-quarters of employees say thoughtful gifts make them more likely to stay with their company. And our 2026 Swag Organizer Survey found that 74% of swag [...]