How to run an onboarding meeting

What is an onboarding meeting?

In an onboarding meeting, new employees are introduced to your company’s structure, goals, culture, rules, and policies. Onboarding meetings may also cover a new employee’s responsibilities in full detail. Onboarding meetings are important because they help prepare employees for their new job.

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How to lead an onboarding meeting

If you’re in charge of running an onboarding meeting, follow these steps so that it runs smoothly and employees hit the ground running.

1. Prepare for the onboarding meeting

Onboarding meetings may feature just one employee or multiple employees. Ensure you collect all new employees’ contact information well in advance and use it to send out meeting invitations. Sometimes, onboarding meetings will group together any new employees, regardless of their role. Other times, onboarding meetings are grouped by role or team. If you choose to run an onboarding meeting for a specific department, you can tailor the meeting more to that department’s needs. Once you have everyone’s contact information, choose a time, date, and place for the meeting. Make sure you leave some time at the end of the meeting to answer any questions that the new employees might have. Inform new employees in the invitation whether they need to bring specific documents, such as a passport for employment verification, ensuring they come prepared.

If you have the time or budget, getting snacks or refreshments for the onboarding meeting will create an even more welcoming environment.

2. Creating a meeting agenda

To stay organized for your onboarding meeting, create a meeting agenda. The meeting agenda should outline the main points that you’ll discuss during the meeting. Some key points that you may want to cover include employee benefits, paid time off policies, or information about the duration of new employee training.

3. Start with introductions and an icebreaker

Introduce yourself, then ask the meeting members to introduce themselves with their job title. You can also incorporate an icebreaker to help each of the new hires get to know each other. Some examples of onboarding meeting icebreaker questions might include:

• If you could have a superpower, what would it be?
• Where would you like to travel next for vacation?
• If you were an animal, what animal would you be and why?
• What’s your most-used emoji?

4. Give an office tour

If you’re holding your meeting in person, show your new employees around the office. If your office has a kitchen, café, coffee station, or gym, make sure to highlight these places so that your new employees are familiar with their new workplace.

5. Review employee policies, benefits, and more

Once you’ve shown your new hires around the office, review key information such as payroll, PTO, sick days, and more. While your employees may have discussed these things during their job interviews, their interviews may have been weeks ago and they might have forgotten this information. Make sure to highlight important details like how many vacation and sick days your employees get, commuter benefits, how they can request time off, how they can sign up for payroll, and how often they’ll get paid. This is also a great time to share the contact information of key people in your company—for example, if your company has a specific human resources contact for health insurance questions, provide their email or phone number. If your company has a specific timeframe for new employee training, share how long it is so employees are prepared.

6. Leave time for questions

Leave time at the end of your meeting to answer any onboarding meeting questions. If you’re not sure how to answer someone’s question, promise to follow up or direct the inquiry to the appropriate department for a detailed response.

7. Send out an email

Following the meeting, send a thank-you email to all attendees, including reminders for any immediate next steps and attachments or links to important resources discussed, like your company policy handbook, your company payroll portal, or the company time off portal.

Creating an organized onboarding meeting can help new employees feel confident about their new role. Learn more about how you can stay organized by setting work-life boundaries or getting to inbox zero.