Great first impressions are vital when it comes to your employee onboarding experience. Greeting a new employee with a customized gift—a coffee mug, a tumbler, water bottle, or a T-shirt—makes the employee quickly feel like part of the team.
You want to capture that narrow window to make new employees feel a sense of belonging and camaraderie with their new teammates and your organization, and customized gifts can help build those connections. Here’s how.
Employees Keep Customized Company Swag
New employees aren’t going to jump ship just because you don’t give them a customized mug their first day on the job.
But how an employee feels after that first day can have a profound influence on how they perceive their job and standing within the company. And a negative experience on the first day will only compound over time. In fact, 64% of employees are likely to leave their job within the first year after having a bad onboarding experience.
Since retaining their employees long-term is good for business, many employers focus on delivering a good onboarding process at the start of an employee’s journey at the company. A good onboarding experience means giving new hires what they need, setting them up for success in their role, and showing that you value them as part of your team.
Customizing a product for your new hires is a great way to show employees that you value them and their contributions to your company with a personal touch.
For example, LogoJET’s onboarding experience reflects the company culture by introducing our production team members, who then help the new employee create a customized drinking tumbler.
At the end of the day, the new employee goes home with a new tumbler from their new company printed on machines that they sell. The experience creates a feeling of ownership regarding LogoJet, their new job, and our products.
Customized Employee Onboarding Gifts Are More Affordable Than Ever
Some employers think that creating a positive first impression with new employees may be great, but their company can’t afford to print customized company swag with no immediate quantifiable return.
The good news is that digital printing has ushered in a new way of producing these products and pricing that doesn’t hurt your bottom line.
Traditional printing technology requires a customized design template — company logos, for example — and then pays off the cost of creating that template by printing a large volume of products. Volume was key to making this business model cost-effective for employers.
Digital printing no longer requires a high volume of production. The cost to create one copy or 1,000 copies of a digital design remains the same, opening up a wealth of possibilities for customization.
Try These Customized Employee Gift Ideas
The customization options made possible by digital printing extend far beyond office supplies, although those are a tried-and-true option. The ability to print on different materials is constantly evolving. High-quality UV printers can now print custom designs onto wood, plastic, metal, glass, and leather, among other materials.
There’s a long list of customizable products that employees will remember (and keep) for years to come, such as: pens, notebooks, water bottles laptops, phone cases, iPad folio, pins, nameplates, and more.
Many companies outsource personalized employee gifts, partnering with firms that specialize in turning them around quickly.
Other organizations bring the production in house, using an in-house UV printer to cut costs and produce items even more quickly. They’ll bulk-buy generic products that are easily personalizable, then customize them as needed for their employee welcome kits.
Making an effort to personalize gifts for employee onboarding — and creating a memorable experience — helps solidify feelings of ownership and commitment to the company. In turn, employees who experience those feelings are more dedicated to their jobs, which increases employee retention rates to the benefit of your business.
The choice to outsource customized gifts or print gifts in-house must be based on each company’s needs and capabilities. But, regardless of method, creating a customized onboarding experience for employees makes retention prospects and your company culture look brighter.