A new employee's first day sets the tone for their time within your company. A well-organised and supportive experience gives new hires a great first impression of the company as well as helping them to ease into their new role and improve their chances of success.

However, onboarding a new employee is no easy task, especially when making a new hire for a small business. Onboarding new team members is time-consuming and often stressful—but if not done right it can affect the employee's performance and that of the rest of your team. Instead of starting the process from scratch with each new hire, equip yourself with a bank of employee onboarding tools that help to streamline the process—making the hiring process more efficient and enjoyable for both you and your new employee.

From task management to team exposure, these tools help to streamline, and even automate, everything the new employee needs to get started. Stock up your employee onboarding toolkit with the best software on the market and welcome new hires with ease...

Tango

Best for: introducing daily tasks

It takes a team to Tango! Tango is a free Chrome extension that allows you to create a step-by-step guide for new hires, without increasing your workload. That's right! Simply press record, go about your task as usual, and in the background, Tango will be busy creating a document that summarises your process complete with instructional screenshots. But don't worry about privacy, Tango automatically crops the images and blurs out any private information! Edit and share your guide as desired. Et voila—a step-by-step guide to daily tasks in seconds!

Bubbles

Best for: explaining a new process

Some things are just best explained by Bubbles! If your new team member is a visual learner, or indeed their new task is best illustrated by video, then Bubbles is a go-to tool. Bubbles allows you to record your screen and voice as you walk through a process step-by-step. It also lets you assign the video to a team member and set a date and time when you need a response. Bubbles will send a reminder to the assignee when the deadline is close! This way, you'll be able to monitor a new hire's onboarding progress and offer additional support if necessary.

Caroo

Best for: showing your appreciation

Caroo helps you identify the best ways to welcome your new hires and reward hard work based on their care preferences. Caroo asks new hires about their likes and dislikes in the workplace and general personality and uses the data to put together a custom appreciation plan—a personal touch sure to make new team members feel appreciated through their onboarding process and beyond! With Caroo, you can send meaningful digital gift cards, automate birthday celebrations, treat the team to lunch and more! Remember: the happier your employees, the higher their productivity!

Confetti

Best for: building team spirit

Help new hires quickly find their place in your team by organising team-building activities and welcome parties with Confetti. Confetti is filled with hundreds of exclusive team-building games, onboarding activities, and virtual events that your employees can enjoy. This helps you promote inclusivity, strengthen team connections, and develop soft skills. You don't even need to spend precious time planning! Just scan, select, customise, set a time and date, and voila! Your event is all set.

The roundup

The tools you use to onboard new team members should be easy to use, clear and interactive. But remember, even with the best toolkit at your disposal, the key to successfully welcoming new hires is to make them feel at home. A healthy work place culture allows new team members to quickly gel with their colleagues and is beneficial to the productivity and satisfaction of your whole team. Here are a few creative ways to make new employees feel welcome on their first day:

• Decorate their desk. Customising your new hire's workspace is a fun and easy way to make them feel instantly at home.  You can have the team paste short welcome notes on their desk, put up small balloons around their space, or set up a custom desk nameplate for them! Even better if you could prepare something that is personal to them, their interests, their culture etc. Thoughtfulness is always appreciated!

• Get out of the office. Skip the icebreaker questions and get out and about! Without the pressure of work, your new employees can be themselves and learn about their coworkers in the same way. Not only will new employees and your existing team be able to bond more readily, but it will also give your team a well-earned reward for all their hard work—two in one. You could head to karaoke, attend a painting workshop, or go on a team picnic.

• Create a welcome hamper. A welcome hamper can include handy workplace tools, welcome trinkets, snacks, personalised gifts/cards and more. You could even make it a more practical gift by including information packets on the company and their role responsibilities and a printout of their daily tasks and schedule.