Enhancing onboarding with InCommon

It should be no secret that effective onboarding is more than just paperwork and procedures. Helping new employees feel as though they belong within the team and company is equally important. But developing the connections and relationships that lead to a true sense of belonging takes time.

What if you could help your new employees build genuine relationships faster?

By connecting new hires with coworkers who share similar interests or experiences, InCommon gives them a head start on the path to belonging. In addition, integrating this kind of accelerated relationship-building into the onboarding process creates an environment where new employees develop the social capital needed to be successful in their roles.

When you combine the benefits of these two outcomes, you’re looking at improved retention, engagement, and job satisfaction.

In this article, we’ll highlight four ways InCommon supports relationship-building during onboarding, including practical tops to enhance your company's existing programs.

• Making profile creation a meaningful day-one activity

• Using automated welcome messages for personalized introductions

• Enhancing intro meetings through strategic connection points

• Helping new hires expand their connections beyond immediate teammates

Profile creation: A day-one win

Making an InCommon profile should be an early task for new hires—it's quick, engaging, and provides immediate value. Add it to your day-one checklist between administrative tasks to give new hires a creative break that’s still highly productive.

The profile creation process helps new employees:

• Share their authentic selves with the team
  Robust profiles showcase a range of personal and professional interests as well as places you’ve live and engagement opportunities you’re looking for.

• Discover shared interests with teammates
  New employees can immediately see which coworkers share their interests as well as which of their interests are most widely shared across the company.

• See their place in the organization
  An interactive org chart makes it easy to search the company and discover commonalities with integrated interest data.

• Feel welcomed and valued from day one
  New employees are automatically highlighted on the company’s network tab with a summary of their InCommon profile.

Pro tip: Schedule profile creation before the first 1:1 meetings. This timing gives employees relevant conversation starters and helps break the ice naturally.

Making first impressions count

Give every new hire a warm, personal welcome by highlighting what makes them unique. InCommon makes this easy with options that work for your preferred communication platform.

When introducing new team members:

• Use the Slack /incommon-intro command for an instant, customized welcome message
  Save hiring managers the time needed to search out photos and bios without sacrificing a personalized welcome.

• Share a screenshot of their bio snippet on internal communication channels
  Recent hires are automatically highlighted within the app, giving hr and hiring managers an easy way to introduce them to the team on any platform.

• Highlight interests and experiences to spark natural connections
  Instead of sending a generic welcome, existing employees can easily tailor a message to their unique connection to the new hire.

Intro meetings that matter

Use InCommon's profile information to make intro meetings more meaningful and productive for new hires. When both parties involved can enter with some level of context, they'll have a richer conversation that’s more likely to lead to a genuine connection.

When planning introduction meetings:

• Select attendees based on shared interests
  Consider adding a few intro meetings that have nothing to do with departments or shared projects and everything to do with shared interests. You never know when or how that social capital might be a benefit in the future.

• Select onboarding buddies who share common ground with new hires
  Wait to select an onboarding buddy until the new hire has completed their profile. Then select someone they’re likely to connect with, giving them a chance to form a strong relationship with their first touch point.

• Encourage new employees to review profiles before meetings
  Even if it’s a group meeting, taking a look at profiles and shared interests ahead of time can help start conversations and connections, in addition to building empathy and understanding for their coworkers.

Pro tip: Use profiles to share fun facts about one employee at the top of every team meeting. Rotate between employees so you’re only taking up a few minutes each meeting.

Expand their network beyond immediate teammates

Help new hires connect across the entire organization, building meaningful relationships beyond those they’re likely to work with regularly. It can be difficult to find connection in a large company, but in expanding their circle, new hires broaden their reach and future resources.

Get them to think beyond their circle by:

• Designing partner- and team-based programs with shared interests and experiences in mind
  Consider shared interests when pairing up mentors or creating cross-departmental teams and activities.

• Asking them to use Meet & Shuffle to learn names and faces
  InCommon’s “name game” integrates shared interests to make names even stickier, helping eliminate awkward encounters where you forget who’s who.

• Using the org chart as a reference tool
  When employees are figuring out the lay of the land, the org chart can encourage them to seek out coworkers from different departments by highlighting commonalities and not just job titles.

• Find conversation starters with colleagues across departments
  Use InCommon Cards to get conversations going—either through the Slack command or in the app. Consider kicking off regular meetings with one question, or share one question each week in a Slack channel, encouraging employees to take a moment to connect.

A strong onboarding program sets the foundation for engaged, connected employees who stay with your company longer. By integrating InCommon into your onboarding process, you create natural opportunities for meaningful relationships while helping new hires navigate their role with confidence.

Looking for more ideas to encourage genuine connection across your company? Let’s talk!