Looking for new ways to hang with your remote teams? Try a virtual puzzle. At Impala, the People Ops team organizes regular sessions using this free puzzle tool from Google.

The first day leaving a baby at home and returning to the office can be a tough one. The return can be even harder when the workplace looks very different. At Awesome Company, the People team eases the pain of day one by providing updates to new parents 3 weeks before they return. The updates include the new faces and names they might encounter and what’s changed around the office.

At Productboard, the book, Inspired by Marty Cagan, is a company-wide favorite because it embodies the way their team does work. When a new hire arrives, Inspired is sitting on the employee’s desk.

🌍 For a remote-friendly alternative, send the book in the mail (or an ebook) to arrive on the new hire’s first day of work.

A sheet cake isn’t the dessert of choice for most people. Splendid Company adds a little more personalization (and a lot more deliciousness) to their birthday celebrations by keeping tabs on everyone’s dream desserts. The team collects the preferences during onboarding and orders those favorites instead of something generic.

Finding the right present for everyone can be hard. Not everyone needs something new, and not everyone will use something generic. GoodHire chooses to donate to a favorite cause of the employee instead (they collect this information during onboarding). The gift aligns with the company’s cultural value of giving and having a positive impact on the world. Donation gifts are easy with sites like Global Giving.

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Depending on your leave policy, a new parent may be out of the workplace for a long time. During that time, a lot of things are happening in that person’s life. Zazzy Company sends new parents a baby book signed by the whole team to show their love and support.

During the first few weeks of work, new hires will have endless questions. At the same time, these employees may be hesitant to speak up or interrupt those around them, particularly their manager. To combat this problem, People Operations veteran Carly Guthrie suggests creating a shared document where the new hire can dump all their questions during the first week.

⭐️ We like this because it’s easy and high-impact for ramping a new hire up to full productivity.

📚 Employee Onboarding at Startups Is Broken – Here’s How to Fix It. First Round Review. Interview with Carly Guthrie.

Alumni networks are a powerful tool to help former employees remain engaged with your organization and with each other. They can also be something an employee looks forward to joining from the outset. For inspiration, check out McKinsey’s and Accenture’s alumni networks. For smaller companies, a Facebook group, Slack channel, or LinkedIn Alumni group work well to facilitate an online community. Interview former employees on what they want to see in their alumni network, such as content or networking events.

It's difficult to coordinate among stakeholders during the offboarding process. Creating a private Slack channel with relevant people helps you communicate more directly. This channel can include the offboardee's manager and relevant HR and IT folks. You may or may not want to invite the offboardee depending on the context of their departure.

Babies aren't cheap. At Knockout Company, the team helps alleviate the cost of the baby essentials with a $500 gift card to employees on parental leave to help pay for diapers, food, clothing, or nursery setup.

A fun way to get-to-know your colleagues better is to see where they spend their time during the day - their office. Start a #WFH-challenge slack channel and invite your teammates to share a picture of their working environment. Have them also share their tips on ergonomic seating, desk lighting, or productivity playlist along with the photo itself.

At Awesome Company, every department has a unique subculture. Rather than decide everything from the top, the organization chooses to let teams determine how to celebrate. Teammates coordinate birthdays in a temporary Slack channel (with everyone except the birthday person) and receive a budget from People Operations for whatever celebration they choose.

⭐️ We like this because it’s great way to delegate the responsibility and create a culture of teammates supporting each other

A favorite onboarding tradition for many teams that work in an office is the swag on the desk at arrival. When an employee walks up to their new desk and sees a shirt (in their size), stickers, notebook, pens, and more, it’s a great welcome surprise. Plus, many new hires will take a photo and share it across social media, which is not too bad for an employer brand.

🌍 For a remote-friendly alternative, send a box of swag that arrives on the first day they log in to work.

📚 Employee Onboarding at Startups Is Broken – Here’s How to Fix It. First Round Review. Interview with Carly Guthrie.

Stories and shared vulnerabilities between coworkers go a long way. Many new parents say that having a senior leader share their own experience as a new parent is an impactful way to create a pro-family culture. Conducting a check-in before a new parent goes on leave can help the employee understand that it’s okay to take the time and space they need adjusting to the new lifestyle.

Gravity Payments supports its clients at every possible opportunity. For birthdays (and work anniversaries), the team turns to Blue Poppy Floral, a local Seattle customer of theirs that provides bouquets, plants, and goodie bags.

A research study conducted across the United Kingdom and Ireland determined that one of the top struggles of returning mothers was the transition back. Sometimes, new parents want to check in while they are away, or gradually ramp up to working full time again. Building out a phased return allows parents to ease back in and stay in the loop.

📚 How Companies Can Ensure Maternity Leave Doesn’t Hurt Women’s Careers. Harvard Business Review. David Collings, Yseult Freeney, and Lisa van der Werff.

When someone on the Gravity Payments team has a baby, the company sends the new parent a blanket from Haiti Babi, a organization they know well that trains moms in Haiti to knit and crochet. The blanket gift brings together two elements important to Gravity culture: supporting employees and giving back.

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There are very few gifts that are both practical and fun. Giving an employee a keyboard would be functional, but not enjoyable. Meanwhile, novelty or branded items can be fun at the moment, but not useful. At Pupford, the team found a gift to span both categories: shoes. On their birthday, employees receive a stipend for purchasing a new pair of kicks.

At Boldy, the People Team wanted to ensure the addition of a new family member was recognized as a celebration, rather than a burden. Now, before a parent goes on leave, the team throws a virtual baby shower where everyone celebrates and plays baby games.

The favorite new parent gift of workplaces everywhere is the gift of a baby onesie with a company logo or culture-relevant slogan. It’s a fun present to tell new parents on leave that the company is thinking of them and sharing in the joy of a family addition.

The founders of Warby Parker believe executives should be a part of new employee training. At scale, onboarding activities can be repetitive and seemingly not worthy of C-suite time. But the executive inclusion is an important optic point to let new hires know they are valuable. Plus, as a bonus, company values are perceived with extra importance when they are explained by the top brass.

📚 How Warby Parker Makes Every Point In Its Employee Lifecycle Extraordinary. First Round Review.

Warby Parker’s name came from two Jack Kerouac characters: Warby Pepper and Zagg Parker. On a new hire’s first day, they are presented with the Jack Kerouac book, Dharma Bums. Does the book represent the way the company operations? No. But the gift a fun way to tie the new employee to the company’s founding lore.

📚 How Warby Parker Makes Every Point In Its Employee Lifecycle Extraordinary. First Round Review.

When an employee has a birthday at 15Five, they receive a $500 stipend toward a personal development course. In the spirit of celebrating the person and not the job, the team member chooses a learning opportunity unrelated to their day-to-day job.

When new hires are onboarded remotely, it can be difficult to get to know them as real people. The team at Welcome introduces new team members to by having a professional interviewer chat with the new employee using Artifact. The practice lets new employees tell their personal story with more depth than the traditional welcome bullet points.

As Awesome Company grew, they realized their tradition of bringing in a cake for every person’s birthday wasn't scalable. Instead, the organization started to celebrate birthdays once a month, letting the birthday people decide amongst them what the cake flavor will be. Knockout Company has a similar practice, but rather than leave the cake flavor up to discussion, Knockout hosts a lottery among birthday people (a competitive affair for the infamous November birthday crowd).

A parent buddy is an excellent resource for new parents to help them navigate as they re-enter the working environment. Not only can a parent buddy be a support structure and sounding board for a parent trying to find balance, but the connection can also be a great way to foster inter-team relationships. Teams of all kinds benefit from parental bonding.

⭐️ We like this because having someone to talk to who can relate to your-day-to-day challenges is so important.

📚 How Companies Can Ensure Maternity Leave Doesn’t Hurt Women’s Careers. Harvard Business Review. David Collings, Yseult Freeney, and Lisa van der Werff.

At growing companies, there are few chances for top leadership to reflect on the individual contributions of individual employees. At TenantBase, the management team uses birthdays as a recurring opportunity to foster a more in-depth personal appreciation. As the day approaches, the CEO, COO, or CTO writes a thoughtful card to thank the birthday person and remind them how important they are to the company.

💸 For a no-budget alternative, have the C-suite team member send the note in the form of a digital card.

⭐️ We like this because fostering a connection between upper management and employees is a great way to keep everyone aligned and engaged.

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As part of Pie Insurance's parental leave program, we provide $500 in grocery or meal delivery services to the new Mom or Dad. It helps to take their mind off of getting dinner on the table so they can focus on their new little one.

When a team member loses a loved one, in addition to taking off as much time as needed, the team at Knack sends the employee a free meal via a food delivery service gift card. In addition to taking work off of their plate for a while, they want to give the team member one less thing to think about while navigating the loss of a loved one.

Udemy includes a video and workbook on remote working best practices. The material is a part of their onboarding flow for new work-from-home hires. The video provides tips and recommendations for employees entering the organization outside of the usual office environment. The workbook encourages healthy thoughts about personal wellbeing and connection in a remote work context.

📚 So you hired someone during a pandemic lockdown. Now what? Protocol. Lauren Helper.

Collecting information about the preferences of employees upfront—dietary restrictions, favorite snacks and treats, coffee shop of choice— makes personalizing other experiences easier down the road. Many companies make a fun preference questionnaire a part of onboarding.

⭐️ We like this because it helps you create better experiences for the employee over the course of time at your company.

Food brings us together. For holidays that celebrate particular cultures and identities at your company, offer a budget to let those celebrating bring in relevant dishes for the whole team to share. During the break, give team members the opportunity to talk about their culture or identity (if they're comfortable).

People Teams shouldn't coordinate holiday celebrations in a bubble. Consider sourcing ideas and inspiration for holidays and heritage months from the rest of the team. See what observances matter most to employees and don't make assumptions.

The early impressions from an employee’s first day are impactful. People Operations veteran Carly Guthrie advocates for a handwritten note on the desk of the new hire from their manager. The simple gesture signals belonging in an otherwise hectic time.

🌍 For a remote-friendly alternative, make it a thoughtful letter in the mail (or email in their inbox) for day one.

⭐️ We like this because first impressions are high-impact.

📚 Employee Onboarding at Startups Is Broken – Here’s How to Fix It. First Round Review. Interview with Carly Guthrie.

It’s a tradition dear to many workplaces: the new hire GIF barrage. Upon entering the digital workspace, the rookie employee receives an onslaught of GIFs, welcoming them to their new work home. Companies who want to add a little process to the chaos can designate the channel and timing of GIFs. Don’t have a workplace chat tool? Many companies create the same welcome experience in an email thread.

Great Company is growing fast, with new hires arriving every few weeks and multiple offices. To coordinate the chaos of introductions, the People Team built a #welcome channel to help employees keep track of all of the new faces appearing across their workspaces. As a new hire comes on board, they receive a formal digital introduction to share some basic info (who they are, what they’ll be doing, where their desk will be, etc.) with the whole company.

At Genuine Company, the managers play a large part in the onboarding process. Every manager with an incoming new hire is given a checklist of items to complete before the employee arrives. Since these items often fall through the cracks, managers receive a reminder about their checklist one week before the arrival.

At Warby Parker, new hires have the opportunity to introduce themselves during weekly all-team meetings. As a part of the exercise, the employee is asked to share a random, original fact about themselves to help give them a way to stand out as an individual in a sea of new faces. According to founder Dave Gilboa, “ (the fun facts have) ranged from someone who held Michael Jackson’s baby to a 5’ tall woman who announced she had the colon of a 6’ tall man.” With a fact in tow, team members are more likely to start a conversation with their new colleague.

📚 How Warby Parker Makes Every Point In Its Employee Lifecycle Extraordinary. First Round Review.

Venture for America opts for an easy, but personal gift for their distributed team. The organization keeps everyone’s favorite coffee shop on file (information they collect during onboarding) and sends a gift card to that spot when the teammate’s birthday rolls around.

🚧 Not every coffee shop has online gift cards (or gift cards at all). You may want to stipulate that need when you collect the information.

When your team starts growing, channels become crowded. Great Company wanted to recognize birthdays publicly across the workspace but needed to make sure the messages didn’t become lost in #general or #random. They chose to create a #celebrations channel as the primary location for sharing the love. The manager of the birthday person is in charge of creating the post on the morning of the special day.

At Awesome Company, they have managers create a running Google Doc with notes of interesting things going on in the office while an employee is on leave. New parents don’t have to look the doc at all, but if they want to passively check-in to see the big things that are going on in the office, they can. It’s a way to keep new parents connected on their own terms.

You will want to collect feedback from your new hires as early as possible. Understanding the new hire experience is crucial to making improvements to the process. Try gathering feedback with periodic surveys or during 1:1 meetings. At Gather, we ask our new hires to share Day 1 feedback at the end of their first day with a form containing a few open-ended questions.

Mid-size and large companies with multiple new parents in the office at a time have the opportunity for communal support systems. At Course Hero, all of the women who return from leave and are pumping get a Slack channel to coordinate times for using the pumping room.

Beyond parental leave policy, there are many ways companies can support new parents. Awesome Company keeps improving by collecting feedback from a new parent while the experience is top-of-mind. The company uses those observations to guide support structures for the benefit of future parents.

Sometimes managers (especially younger managers who do not have children) are unprepared for how to work with a parent returning from leave. Scheduling training for that manager before the parent comes back is a great way to ensure they provide a welcoming and supportive environment for a returning parent.

Christine Tsai, mother and partner at 500 Startups, notes, “pregnancy can be rough on women physically and involves lots of doctor’s appointments.” To support pregnant women in the office, Awesome Company creates a flexible schedule for expecting mothers. The process kicks off by prompting a manager to have a conversation early on to start thinking about arrangements.

📚 5 Ways Startups Should Support Pregnant Employees, Inc. Jessica Stillman.

Quality exit interview questions get to the why and the most actionable feedback. An effective mixed-method question looks like: “On a scale of 1-5, rank your relationship with your supervisor” followed by “Why did you choose that ranking?”. It’s the why behind the rankings that will reveal the concrete opportunity space for your organization to do better. Next, ask “why” 1-2 more times. Data shows that the fourth response to the “why” probe is the most actionable piece of feedback.

The best source of talent is your company's network. Sharing current open roles with your teams on regular basis can help you get great candidate referrals. At Salesforce, the Talent Acquisition team organizes "recruitment happy hours” where employees invite their friends outside the company to learn more about the team.

Many companies are starting to recognize heritage months— like Pride Month and Black History Month— externally. It's easy for a PR team to post something on social media, but it's far more impactful to force engaging internal conversations. At Awesome Company, the team coordinates events, panels, and readings throughout the heritage month to foster better conversations.

Navigating parental leave in a way that supports the company and the individual is a complex and personal process. There are many factors to consider across contexts. From the very beginning, managers and leaders should create an open conversation about approach, communication, and return expectations.

📚 How Companies Can Ensure Maternity Leave Doesn’t Hurt Women’s Careers. Harvard Business Review. David Collings, Yseult Freeney, and Lisa van der Werff.

Mugs are a great gift for a variety of reasons. They are relatively cheap, easy to personalize, and useful in the workplace. At Remarkable Company, managers order funny mugs (from Zazzle or Etsy) that reflect the personality of the celebrating employee. At Inuvo, the birthday mugs offer a hand-illustrated portrait of the employee.

Microsoft conducted an internal study that showed the importance of onboarding buddies on their teams. New hires who had a companion for their first 90 days were 36% more satisfied with their first three months. Those who met more often with their buddy became more productive, faster. Now onboarding buddies are a core part of the new hire experience. At Buffer, there are two different types of buddies: a “culture buddy” who addresses companywide dynamics and a “role buddy” who can speak more specifically to the new hire’s functions on the team.

⭐️ We like this because of its research-backed effectiveness in supporting new hires.

📚 Every New Employee Needs an Onboarding “Buddy,” Harvard Business Review. Dawn Klinghoffer, Candice Young, and Dave Haspas.

Olark built a transition program that spans both sides of parental leave. To make sure nothing gets dropped, a transition period begins 3 months prior to when an employee is expected to go on leave. Similarly, the 3 months following leave are a ramping-up period with extra support and an understanding that the returning parent will not be back to functioning at full capacity.

Celebrating birthdays with dessert can be a struggle for those trying to stay away from sugar. At coolblueweb, the birthday person chooses breakfast for the office instead. Of course, the honoree might choose doughnuts, but at least there is a choice to do something less sweet.

One of the perks employees at Atlassian enjoy the most is Volunteer Time Off (VTO). With VTO employees spend a dedicated amount of time volunteering instead of working. It's not only a great purposeful benefit and but it also boosts your company’s brand as a great place to work.

Things can move fast in the office while you’re away. At Course Hero, the team has a light re-integration onboarding for new parents returning to the office from leave. The process offers new parents a workplace refresher and includes information about new developments at the company.

Onboarding is a long process. Even the most experienced hires will take months to catch up on the technical, cultural, and political aspects of their new job. Professor, onboarding expert, and leadership coach, Michael D. Watkins, proposes setting a “how are things going” session every two weeks between a manager and new hire until the employee has no more questions.

📚 7 Ways to Set Up a New Hire for Success. Harvard Business Review. Michael D. Watkins.

A heartfelt and affordable way to show you care is providing a goodbye card for a leaving employee, signed by team members and other important coworkers and superiors. Encourage signers to write a favorite memory or characteristic about the employee.

At Doist, every newcomer gets a mini-challenge list (a sort of scavenger hunt) to help them socialize and engage across the company. The tasks (which are purely optional) include items like: suggest a new product feature idea, meet with one new person on every team, and write a company blog post.

At fully-distributed companies, upfront communication is vital for setting the tone for a good working relationship (not that it isn’t critical for non-distributed teams). Managers at Buffer take extra time and care to set 30-day, 60-day, and 90-day expectations for new hires. Leaders and direct reports touch base at each of those moments to reflect and provide feedback for one another.

When a company hires someone new, there are expectations for what that person will be able to deliver within the first three months. By adequately setting and communicating those standards, it should start to be clear whether or not they are a fit within the first quarter of a year. Setting a marker with the appropriate stakeholders after 90 days can help you assess if a new hire is hitting the right marks and course-correct early if need be.

📚 Employee Onboarding at Startups Is Broken – Here’s How to Fix It. First Round Review. Interview with Carly Guthrie.

New fathers face unique challenges of their own in the workplace. Ensuring parental equality requires creating space and visibility for new fathers to support one another. Many companies add returning father’s to a father resource group to support dads as they navigate the challenges of their new family role.

Once new parents come back to the office, life is different for them. As employees make adjustments and learn their new routines for taking care of a child, Knockout Company offers them three months of extended, flexible work-from-home time to make it a little bit easier.

Bluebird and Package Free go the extra mile with their birthday cards. In advance of the special day, dedicated “culture crews” run around and collect submissions for a Kudoboard— a tool that allows employees to post notes, videos, photos, and gifs all on a shared card. The card is presented to the birthday person during the teamwide celebration.

💸 For a no-budget alternative, try using a collaboration tool your team is already using for other purposes to make an interactive digital card. Maybe, Figma, Mural, or even Google Slides.

Knockout Company celebrates new hires on the Friday of their first week with a company-wide lunch. Before lunch, the People Team has the new hire fill out a blurb on themselves. During the meal, someone else at the company reads the blurb aloud to introduce the new hire to the whole team. Following the intro, the employees go around and ask the new hire 20 questions about themselves.

The move to a monthly birthday celebration comes at the cost of personal touch. To highlight each individual during the group celebration, GreenPal orders a sheet cake with the faces of each honoree on a slice. As you can imagine, the personal touch provides more laughs and smiles than a plain cake.

Tired of the awkward silence while waiting before the meeting starts? At Buffer, the team shares icebreaker questions while everyone's gathering for their all-hands meeting. The People team adds an icebreaker question ahead of time, so teammates can jump in and start chatting, avoiding the “Zoom silence.” They’ve also experimented with having a teammate play music during this gathering time.

At Productboard, when an employee adds a new member to their family, it’s an opportunity to celebrate the whole family. The company sends a big gift box to the parent's home to share in the excitement.

The use of a third party to conduct the exit interview helps you get more honest feedback. Forty percent of employee’s reasons for leaving change when a third-party is used, suggesting that having an employee’s superiors dramatically alters the results of the interview.

Instead of gathering for an in-office celebration, many remote teams choose a specific time to jump on a video call together (via Zoom or Google Hangouts, perhaps). They spend this time going around the circle and sharing favorite memories of the birthday person. It's a great way to make sure the isolated employee gets lots of love during their special day.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the team at Udemy was in a hiring phase. As the People Team onboarded new “Udemates” in a work-from-home environment, they re-created a version of their office tour. With videos and photos, the team helped new employees visualize their future at the company when things returned to normal.

📚 So you hired someone during a pandemic lockdown. Now what? Protocol. Lauren Helper.

Scheduling one-on-ones with stakeholders in other departments is a way for new hires to learn the landscape of the organization. At BoxCast, each new employee is assigned one-on-one meetings with their teammates and one person from every other department during their first two weeks. These stakeholder conversations help lay the groundwork for the new hire’s organizational network.

📚 7 Ways to Set Up a New Hire for Success. Harvard Business Review. Michael D. Watkins.

The managers at BoxCast recognize birthdays as an opportunity to engage with employees at a personal level. Offsite lunches give the team leads the space to have a real, non-work conversation with their direct reports.

🌍 For a remote-friendly alternative, have the team lead and direct report order in food (paid for by the company) and chat over video while they eat.

⭐️ We like this because it’s a structured way to deepen relationships and build trust.

During the winter holidays the Knack crew asks team members if they want to participate in a secret Santa gift exchange. Those who enlist are given a co-worker to mail a gift to, along with a spending limit, but we require the gift to be representative of the person's hometown. We then collectively open our gifts on a video call and everyone gets to guess who the gift is from based on its contents.

Leading an onboarding process with multiple stakeholders can be challenging. Create a private Slack channel for key people involved in new hire onboarding to better coordinate the process across teams. This process happens behind the scenes so you don't need to invite the new hire here.