Best Practices for Onboarding Your First Hire

Business owners often take one of two approaches to onboarding. Either they do no preparation and wing it on the first day, hoping they hired someone who can pick up the work fast. Or, they overwhelm the new hire with information and expectations without helping them ramp up.

Instead, you should aim to strike the balance of sharing helpful information and then providing space to process. By doing so, you can maximize retention, productivity, and safety. 

This blog is ideal for small ecommerce businesses and solopreneurs making their first hire. Use it as a guide for pre-boarding, first-day rituals, role training, ongoing support, and determining success of your onboarding. 

Pre‑Onboarding Preparations

The first step to making onboarding easier is creating an onboarding process. This ensures that every time you need to make a new hire moving forward, you have a place to start. 

For your first hire, the lift will be bigger to get them up to speed on your business. After that, you’ll have the foundation in place to create a better onboarding experience with each hire. 

Keep in mind that each new hire is a unique person, so you may need to tweak your process to meet their needs. 

Write a Welcome Email

A welcome email does two things. First, it get your hire excited for their first day. Second, it alleviates any ‘first day’ jitters they may experience, while answering questions that could arise. 

In the welcome email, be sure to include:

• Where and when to arrive
• Parking information
• A schedule or agenda for the first day
• Dress code specifications 
• A list of items you need them to bring on their first day (like an ID)

If possible, send over any new hire paperwork and forms that need to be filled out. If you aren’t able to send any of these over electronically, be sure to include them in the welcome packet. 

The Welcome Packet 

A welcome packet builds on the momentum of the welcome email. Your first hire should arrive on-time, and ready to go thanks to your email. The welcome packet will outline the rest of their onboarding. You should include: 

• New hire forms or paperwork that still needs to be filled out
• A schedule or agenda for the entirety of onboarding 
• Usernames and passwords for accounts (that will reset when they login)

Even if you don’t have all the details worked out for the entirety of the onboarding, a rough outline can help your new employee see where they’re headed. 

Ready Work and Equipment Spaces

Your new employee does not want to watch you set up anything they’ll need, so try and get all workspaces they’ll be using and equipment set up before their first day. 

If the employee will have a locker, make sure it’s empty and ready for them. If they need badge access to the building you operate out of, or a code, set that up. If you’re going to give them a dedicated workspace, clear it off and maybe add a nice welcome note. 

Create logins for any warehouse management systems and communications tools that you’d like for them to use, too. Set up their emails, slack, and any other online platforms they’ll need access to. 

This will help fast-track your onboarding process, and get your employee operating on their own faster. 

Documentation and IT Setup

Hiring a new employee likely eases your work load, but it won’t feel like it at first. Don’t worry, it’s just a temporary stage as you get your employee up to speed. 

Send or print out the following documents so they can fill out the forms before or on their first day:

• Digital I-9
• W-4
• Confidentiality/Non-disclosure agreement
• Direct deposit form
• At-will employee acknowledgement
• Equipment and property agreement
• Benefits enrollment form

Tenants at Polygon in Atlanta, Georgia will also need a G-4. 

It can also be a good idea to create some sort of safety manual, or include a general safety manual when it comes to warehouse operations.

Onboarding is Not Orientation

A common mistake many businesses make is thinking that onboarding is the same thing as orientation. 

Orientation is the paperwork and routine tasks to make an employee a part of your company. It usually only lasts a few hours to the first day. 

Onboarding, on the other hand, is all the preparation and guidance you provide to ensure your new employee is able to do the technical components of their job. Onboarding can be as short as a week and as long as a year.

First‑Day Experience

First impressions go both ways, and you’re about to play a huge role in someone’s first day of work. Make sure you set the tone. You can be professional, fun, or laid back, but keep in mind this is how the employee will see the culture of your company. 

Warm Welcome and Orientation

Make sure you’re there in person for their first day, not just giving them a code to get in and start working. A friendly face goes a long way in making someone feel comfortable starting something new. You may want to bring their favorite coffee or tea to start the morning on the right foot. 

Orientation should start shortly after, so you can finish up any outstanding paperwork. Once all the t’s are crossed, and i’s are dotted, you can jump into an intro of the business, and the role they’ll be playing. Be sure to mention where they’ll have the biggest impact on the business. 

It’s also a very nice gesture, and has become standard best practice, to buy them lunch on their first day.

Office and Warehouse Tour

If you’re just starting out, you may or may not have a formal warehouse space. Welcoming someone into your home to help you work isn’t ideal, but traditional warehouses have steep rents and long-term contracts. 

Your first hire is a good time to consider a more formal workspace. If you’re an ecommerce business looking for a warehouse, consider a cowarehousing space. Cowarehouses allow multiple tenants to split warehouse space, and the rent, making your first warehouse experience affordable. 

Regardless of where you’re operating, be sure to give them a tour. If you are in a cowarehouse, introduce them to some of the neighbors. Community is essential for a happy work environment, people report staying at jobs longer if they have even one friend. 

Some areas to point out, regardless if you have a warehouse or are operating out of your home:

• Staging areas
• Dock doors
• Break rooms
• Bathrooms
• Emergency station
• Their workspace
• Kitchen

Safety and Compliance Briefing

It’s not the sexiest topic, but it is a good idea to cover safety and compliance on the first day. Some common topics that are covered by all businesses include:

• OSHA guidelines
• Fire exits
• Spill-response protocols 
• PPE requirements
• Forklift/pallet-jack basics

Define and Explain Clear Role Responsibilities

It’s important that somewhere within the first day to the first week, you define and explain clear role responsibilities. There’s a high likelihood that your new employee will fail if they don’t have clear direction. 

Try to tie their job description to your warehouse realities. 

• Are they in charge of shipping all the packages moving forward? 
• Will they need to manage the general email account? 
• Do they have safety or cleanliness duties, and how will those be evaluated?

The more specific you can be upfront, the better. Set measurable first-90-day goals, as well as times to talk about the progress and any snags the employee may be experiencing.  

This is also a great time to share your leadership style, communication preferences, upcoming projects you’ll need help with, and the most important projects at the moment. Will you be using slack? Teams? Email? Texting? Phone calls? What’s the best way for them to ask you questions?

Sharing more about the way you like to lead and communicate can set you both up for success. 

Role-Specific Training: Week 1

This is where the rubber meets the road. Week one should give your new hire enough structure to build confidence while keeping tasks achievable so they don’t burn out or get overwhelmed.

Focus on Doable, High-Impact Tasks

Start with tasks they can complete end-to-end so they feel progress immediately. Early wins build momentum. Break larger responsibilities into bite-sized pieces and layer complexity as they show readiness.

People love to see how they’re impacting something bigger than a remedial task. Be sure to point out the impact they’re making at your company already, even just in onboarding. 

Systems and Equipment

Nothing replaces doing. Walk them through the warehouse management workflows they’ll touch daily—receiving, put-away, picking, packing, and shipping.

• Show them how to navigate the WMS in real scenarios.
• Demonstrate scanners, mobile terminals, packing stations, and any specialized tools.
• Have them perform each step with your guidance, then repeat while decreasing hand-holding.

Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)

Give context for SOPs, then practice. Review the core SOPs that govern quality, security, and rhythm, like:

• Order accuracy checks and damage reporting
• Cycle counts and inventory reconciliation cadence
• Cleaning/reset routines for shared spaces
• Security protocols around shared inventory and equipment sign-out

Frame these not as arbitrary rules but as things that keep the business running smoothly and everyone’s work predictable.

Daily Check-Ins

Schedule brief daily touchpoints in week one. Use those to:

• Celebrate wins (even small ones)
• Confirm they’re on track
• Answer questions 
• Adjust immediate goals if needed
• Reinforce what good performance looks like

This cadence signals that you’re invested, catches problems before they grow, and helps the hire feel seen.

Ongoing Support & Feedback: Week 1+

As we mentioned earlier, onboarding is an ongoing process and rarely lasts a couple of days. To ensure your new employee has everything they need, consider scheduling a 30, 60, and 90 day check-in to answer questions and get feedback.

Find times for these check-ins during their first onboarding week. Otherwise they’ll be less likely to happen. This is also a good time to ask them what they’re enjoying, what they’d like to do more of, and how they might see themselves growing with your company. 

Supporting their interests can help you retain employees longer, which is often far less expensive than trying to find a new employee and start the training process again. 

You’re Ready to Onboard Your First Employee

It can be lonely and overwhelming starting a new job. There’s a lot to learn, but with an efficient and focused onboarding process, you can set your new hire up for success. 

As the hiring manager, the pre-boarding communications, role-specific trainings, and consistent check-ins, sets a tone to create a workforce that’s safe, capable, and invested in their work. 

Next Steps

• Use a simple version of the “New Hire Onboarding Checklist” to track what’s complete and what’s coming.
• Get the 30, 60, and 90-day check-ins on the calendar so they actually happen.
• Make time to get feedback from your hire about what’s working and what’s confusing.
• Use their feedback to make changes to the onboarding process. 
• Celebrate milestones! Everyone likes to feel seen and appreciated. 

Last, give yourself some praise. You didn’t just hire help. You started growing a team that understands their role and sees how they move the business forward.

By setting up the foundation of your onboarding process, you’re creating a repeatable system that makes every subsequent hire easier, faster, and more effective.

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