What to include in a welcome kit for new employees

What to include in a welcome kit

A good welcome kit combines five things: something useful every day, your brand applied cleanly, a personal touch with the person's name, first-day practical items and careful packaging. The goal is not to fill a box but to make the new hire feel expected.

• Something useful every day. A tumbler or bottle, a notebook and a pen. They go with the person from the first meeting and stay in use for months.
• Your brand, kept clean. A well-placed logo, laser engraved, UV printed or embroidered, gets used. A giant logo on everything ends up in a drawer.
• A personal touch. A card signed by their manager or an item with their name. It's what people remember.
• First-day practical items. A lanyard or badge reel for the ID, and a short guide on who to ask for what.
• Careful packaging. A box or bag that looks prepared ahead of time, not put together at the last minute.

How many items should an employee welcome kit have?

Three to five well-chosen items. More is not better: a box with a few useful things beats one full of items nobody uses. When torn between two, keep the one the person will use next week.

A useful reference: most welcome kits in the Lemon catalog have three or four items, almost always something to drink from and something to write with. Set the budget per person first, then pick the tier. The checklist below helps.

Welcome kit checklist: basic, standard and premium

These are real welcome kits from the Lemon catalog, with reference prices before ITBIS tax as of September 2026 and the lead time from each product page, counted from artwork approval.

• Basic works when many people start at once, or for high-turnover roles.
• Standard is where the kit starts to feel considered: bamboo and steel, and laser engraving that won't wear off.
• Premium makes sense for managers, key roles or when the first impression really counts.

What changes by role?

The core stays (something to drink from, something to write with, your brand) and one item changes with each role's routine:

• Office: lidded mug, faux-leather A5 notebook and metal pen.
• Field sales: a bottle or tumbler that lasts the day and an automatic umbrella.
• Plant or operations: a tough bottle, a cap or a branded polo shirt.
• Remote: items that travel well and a rigid box. See how to ship kits to remote employees.

What to leave out of a staff welcome kit

Three things that take away instead of adding:

• Generic filler that gets thrown out the same day.
• Oversized logos that keep the item from being used outside the office.
• Items that only exist for the photo.

If the budget is tight, drop one item rather than lowering the quality of all of them.

What we ask for to quote your welcome kit

To quote a welcome kit we ask for five things:

• how many people start per month or in the next group;
• the job profiles;
• the budget per person;
• whether you want each person's name;
• the next start date.

With that, you get a proposal with a mockup and line-item pricing in 24–48 hours.

Adding each person's name is one of the most common requests we get: the mug or tumbler often carries the company logo and the new hire's name. So we plan for it from the start: the base kit is produced in a batch, and the named item is made once you confirm who is starting.

A mistake we see often is ordering the kit the same week someone starts. A catalog welcome kit takes 2 to 4 days from artwork approval; with special packaging or volume, count 10 to 18 business days. If people join all year, keep a standard kit and restock it. We explain how in how to run welcome kits when new hires join all year.

For every other kit type and its prices, see the custom corporate kits guide. If you'd rather hand off the whole thing, see our employee welcome kit service.

Request your quote at our quote page with quantity and the next start date: we reply within 24–48 hours, with no commitment.