10 Best Employee Onboarding Experiences

Why is "fun" considered a best practice for employee onboarding? 🤔

“Onboarding” is a word that has come to be associated with paperwork, training, and maybe the occasional small talk over lunch. 

Consider this the onboarding revolution. We are nobly standing up against run-of-the-mill onboarding with onboarding tools that make being the new hire exciting and (dare we say it) fun.

Creating a fun onboarding experience for your new team members is not only a great way to immediately help them feel at home in their new position, but it’s also a great way to create and uphold your company culture from day one.

Plus, it:

• Makes new and existing employees more productive in their roles. 💪
• Helps people feel better connected to their job and the company that they work for. 💙
• Boosts a new employee’s confidence and comfort level in their new role. 🙌

You don’t just want your new hires to sign papers and get acquainted with their job. You want to provide them with an immediate sense of excitement, belonging, and camaraderie. Let’s talk about how to make that happen.

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10 Best Activities for Onboarding New Employees ✨

If you’re feeling lost on where to start with your onboarding overhaul, you’re in luck. Fun team experiences are kind of our thing. Here are some onboarding activities that your new hires and current team alike are sure to love:

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TL;DR - Top 3 Onboarding Experiences 🏆

Want to skip to the fun stuff? Here are our top three favorite onboarding experiences:

• Water Cooler - Best "Getting to Know You" Game 🤝
• Coworker Feud - Best Way to Mix New Hires & Current Team Members 👯
• Think Faster - Best Way to Gauge New Hire Strengths & Challenges 📊

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1. Water Cooler 💧

If you think you’re sick of talking about the weather, imagine how dull it is for your new hires. Water Cooler gives your team something to bond over.

This is a quick and easy icebreaker game! Participants are presented with an icebreaker question and then randomly separated into breakout rooms to discuss.

No more frantically trying to come up with your most interesting “fun fact” for “two truths and a lie.” This game does it for you.

At the end of the activity, the entire team is brought back together to discuss the most interesting thing that they learned during the game. The only rule is that they’re not allowed to talk about themselves.

Water Cooler is a simple, easy, and engaging way to get to know the people that you rely on in the workplace beyond their weekend plans.

How to get started 👉 Make team bonding easy with Water Coolers

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2. Ice Shaker 🧊

Ice Shaker is an icebreaker extravaganza that’s totally personalized to your team!

Select two or three of your favorite rapid-fire icebreaker games to play with your staff, break out into groups to play them, and then come back together to discuss what you’ve learned about each other. 

If your team isn’t the competitive type, Ice Shaker is the perfect way to break free from the office norm.

How to get started 👉 Break the ice in record time

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3. Think Faster

Teach your team to think on their feet with these quick, easy, and fun improv exercises.

You may have shuddered when you read the word “improv,” flashing back to days of stage fright and school plays, but your entire team will be spotlight-ready by the end of this exercise.

Think Faster teaches the basics of improvisation, and has team members act out fun, funny, and work-appropriate scenarios in real-time. More than just a fun time with team leaders and members, it teaches employees the skill of thinking on their feet—something that always comes in handy in the workplace.

How to get started 👉 Say “bye bye” to stage fright for good

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4. Coworker Feud

Got a team that likes a little friendly competition? Look no further than Coworker Feud!

This game is a battle of the brains, rapid-fire game where two teams face off head to head to guess the five most popular answers in a given category. A lot like a certain TV game show that you might know and love…

You might not think that getting competitive is a good way to welcome in a new team member, but you’d be surprised how quickly some friendly competition can bring a team together!

How to get started 👉 Who said feuding couldn’t be fun?

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5. Guess Who…?

Match facts and photos to the people on your team with this fast, casual get-to-know-you game.

Prior to game time, players are asked to submit facts and photos of/about themselves. During the game, the host will take turns presenting these facts and photos, and players get to guess which one belongs to which coworker.

If your team is tired of small talk, this is a quick, fun and visual  way to learn more about the people you work with every day.

How to get started 👉 Think you know your coworkers? Think again.

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6. Mash-Up

Mash-up is a sampler plate of our most popular employee engagement and team building games.

Start off with icebreakers to get everyone warmed up, move on to trivia to get the gears turning, and end your time with everyone’s favorite party game, Taboo. Why settle on just one game when you can play them all? Your new hires will certainly appreciate the extra fun. 

How to get started 👉 Three games are better than one 

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7. Virtual Escape Quest

There’s no denying that an escape room is the ultimate team building activity. After all, who doesn’t want to be locked in an inescapable room with their coworkers?

But when you can’t get the crew to an IRL escape room, an online version is perfect! In Escape Quest, your host introduces you to the story and introduces challenges which must be overcome as a group in order to escape the virtual room in 60 minutes or less.

By randomizing your team, you give new hires and veteran employees a fun, low-stakes opportunity to discover how one another works. 

How to get started 👉 Think your team can beat the clock? Find out here.

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8. Welcome Gifts & Goodies

Don’t let your employee experience slip just because the team building games are done. Everyone loves presents, and one of the best ways to make new hires feel like a part of the team is through swag!

We like branded gifts, plants, and maybe even a “welcome to the team” bottle of wine for your new hire to share with their family and friends.

How to get started 👉 If you’re strapped for ideas on which Goodies are the perfect gift for your team, pick from our Goodies collection. 

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9. Lunch 'n Learn

Instead of lengthy videos outlining company standards, try a more casual lunch ‘n learn option. 

Bring the whole crew together for a company-sponsored lunch and have your HR teams plan for some fun speakers and education. 

If you’re feeling up for it, you can even invite staff members from different departments to briefly speak about their role in the company and what they’re currently working on. That way, your new team members won’t be struggling to match faces with names later down the line.

How to get started 👉 Lunch ‘n learn events aren’t reserved just for in-person companies. With our lunch party gift cards, you can sponsor lunch for the whole team and bring them together over Zoom for a little munching and inspiration.

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10. Vision Board Workshop

Bring all your new hires together to discuss their goals and expectations in their new roles.

This doesn’t have to be a formal conversation. Rather, give your employees the floor to open up about what they hope to get from their new position. 

You want your new hires to feel as valuable as they are to you (AKA very), and allowing them the space to talk openly about their career goals is a great way to set the standard of open and honest communication in the workplace.

How to get started 👉 Help your new employees manifest their dreams in our Vision Board Workshop!

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Frequently Asked Questions ❓

What makes a great onboarding experience for employees? 🤔

A great onboarding experience and employee onboarding program gives your new hires the chance to really relish in the fact that they made a great career decision.

Not only should your onboarding checklist include giving your employees the rundown of their new position and expectations, but the best employee onboarding experiences are engaging and fun.

When all the paperwork is signed, your new hire shouldn't just spend the rest of their first week shadowing their onboarding buddies and making small talk over their lunch breaks. Make them feel welcome into your company with team building exercises and welcome gifts that are curated especially for them. 

To learn more about onboarding best practices, click here.

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What are the 4 C's of onboarding? 🧐

The 4 C’s of onboarding stand for:

• Compliance – making sure that you are onboarding new employees ethically and lawfully.
• Clarification – curating a training program that ensures that all questions are answered and new employees are set up for success in their role.
• Culture – introducing new team members to your workplace culture as a part of new hire onboarding, allowing them to feel excited and included in their new workplace.
• Connection – making sure that team leaders, HR managers, and coworkers welcome new hires onto the team and giving them the chance to feel connected with their workplace from day one. 

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Why is onboarding important for new employees? 🤨

Short answer: because you want them to succeed.

Excellent employee onboarding practices help to ensure that your employees are happy, comfortable, well-equipped and connected with your company from their very first day.

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The Employee Onboarding Process is Always Fun with Confetti 🥳

At Confetti, fun is an integral part of our workplace culture. Would you expect anything different?

From the moment we send a job offer, we encourage our new hires to have fun in their new role, explore their career goals, and connect with their team. We want to help you do the same.

If you’re ready to infuse fun into your employee onboarding process, there’s no better place to start than our Employee Onboarding collection.

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