How to Make a New Employee Welcome Video
Updated: Aug 10
A new employee may know their job title, start date, and salary before their first day. What they usually don’t know is what it will feel like to join the team.
Who will they work with? What will their manager expect during the first few weeks? Who can they ask when they encounter an acronym everyone else seems to understand?
A new employee welcome video can answer some of those quieter questions before the employee walks into the office or joins their first call. It gives managers and coworkers a chance to introduce themselves, explain why they’re excited about the new hire, and make the workplace feel less unfamiliar.
The video has a focused job:
Written onboarding materials should reduce logistical uncertainty. A welcome video should reduce social uncertainty.
That distinction keeps the video personal, useful, and easy to watch.
What is a new employee welcome video?
A new employee welcome video brings together short messages from the people the new hire will work with.
It might include their manager, immediate teammates, an onboarding buddy, department leaders, or coworkers from other teams. Each person briefly introduces themselves and shares something that helps the employee feel expected and included.
The video can be sent before the first day or included in the employee’s first-week onboarding.
Unlike a reusable company orientation video, this welcome is made for one person. It should mention their name, role, experience, and the people they’ll work with.
A general orientation video explains the organization. A personal welcome video helps the employee see where they fit within it.
Focus on the questions a video can answer
Before starting a job, new employees need both practical information and human reassurance.
Practical questions include:
What time should I arrive or log in?
Where should I park?
What should I wear?
Who will meet me?
Has my paperwork been received?
Do I need to prepare anything in advance?
These details belong in an email, onboarding checklist, or employee portal.
Written instructions give the employee somewhere reliable to return when they forget which entrance to use or where the first meeting link was buried.
A welcome video is better suited to questions such as:
Why did the team choose me?
Who will I work with?
What will my first few weeks involve?
Is there someone I can approach with small questions?
Am I expected to produce results immediately?
What is the team actually like?
The answers depend on tone, personality, and reassurance. Hearing a manager explain why the employee stood out carries more weight than finding “Welcome aboard” at the top of an automated email.
Start with the manager
The manager’s message should set the tone for the video.
It doesn’t need to repeat the company history or recite the job description. The employee has already completed the interviews and accepted the position. They need to hear why the team is glad they’re joining.
A manager can briefly cover:
Why the employee was chosen
What strength or experience stood out
What the first few weeks will focus on
Why the team is looking forward to working with them
For example:
We were impressed by the way you talked about helping clients through complicated projects. That calm, organized approach will be valuable to the team. Your first few weeks will focus on meeting everyone, learning our process, and getting comfortable with the work. We’re excited to have you here.
This tells the employee that the hiring decision was intentional. It also reassures them that learning and building relationships are part of the job, rather than something they need to finish before proving their value.
The message should sound like the manager speaking to the employee, not an announcement written for the company intranet.
Ask coworkers to explain how they’ll work together
Coworker messages turn a list of names and job titles into recognizable people.
Each person can share:
Their name and role
How they’ll work with the new employee
What they’re looking forward to
One helpful piece of first-week advice
For example:
I’m Daniel, and I work on the customer success team. We’ll work together whenever a project moves from sales into onboarding. Please ask me anything about our handoff process. It took me a while to learn where everything lives too.
That message gives the employee more than a friendly greeting. It explains the relationship and makes it easier to approach Daniel later.
Useful prompts for contributors include:
How will you work with the new employee?
What do you wish you’d known during your first week?
What’s one team habit that makes work easier?
What are you looking forward to learning from them?
What question should they always feel comfortable asking you?
Specific prompts produce better messages than simply asking everyone to “say welcome.” Without guidance, the organizer may receive ten clips containing the employee’s name, a wave, and a sudden search for the stop button.
Give them a safe person for everyday questions
An onboarding buddy can help with questions that may feel too small or informal for a manager.
That could include:
Which Slack channel to use
Whether cameras are expected in a meeting
Where people usually eat lunch
Who owns a particular process
How urgent requests are communicated
What an internal acronym means
The buddy should make their role clear in the video.
I’ll be your onboarding buddy for the first few weeks. You can come to me with everyday questions about how the team works, where to find things, or who to contact. Nothing is too minor to ask.
New employees sometimes avoid asking questions because they don’t want to appear unprepared. Giving them a designated contact removes some of that pressure.
The buddy should still reach out personally before or shortly after the employee starts. The video introduces the relationship. The actual support happens afterward.
Share a few useful team norms
Every workplace has habits that don’t appear in the employee handbook.
Some teams prefer Slack for quick questions and email for decisions. Some keep cameras optional. Others rely on shared calendars or use a specific way to signal that something is urgent.
A welcome video can introduce a few of these norms before the employee has to discover them through trial and error.
Useful details might include:
Where everyday questions are asked
How the team handles urgent requests
Whether calendars should be kept current
What meeting participation looks like
When people are expected to be available
Whether after-hours messages require a response
Keep the guidance focused on practices that make communication easier.
Avoid office gossip, warnings about particular coworkers, or inside jokes the new employee can’t understand. Those details make the workplace feel harder to enter, which somewhat defeats the welcoming part.
Keep formal onboarding information elsewhere
A welcome video should support the onboarding process without trying to replace it.
Keep these details in writing:
Exact start time
Office address or login instructions
Parking and entrance information
Dress expectations
Equipment setup
Payroll details
Required forms
Planned time off
Compliance policies
Safety procedures
Mandatory training
Written instructions are especially important for remote employees. Nobody wants to scrub through a five-minute welcome video at 8:57 a.m. looking for the meeting link.
The employee should also receive clear guidance about pre-arrival work. Let them know whether they need to complete anything before their official start date. When no preparation is expected, say so directly.
Onboarding is also a good time to learn how employees prefer to be recognized or celebrated once they’re part of the team. That can include whether they want workplace birthdays acknowledged.
Keep the video focused
A welcome video doesn’t need to include everyone in the company.
Focus on the people the employee will probably interact with during their first few weeks. For a small team, that may include everyone. At a larger organization, it may mean the manager, immediate coworkers, onboarding buddy, and one or two department leaders.
Ask each person to record between 20 and 45 seconds.
That gives contributors enough time to say something useful without turning every introduction into a presentation. A finished video of around three to six minutes will feel substantial without adding another long item to the employee’s onboarding schedule.
For larger teams, variety matters. Mix manager messages, peer introductions, useful advice, and short personal welcomes so the video doesn’t become repetitive.
How to collect the messages
Give contributors a focused request, a deadline, and a suggested length.
For example:
We’re creating a welcome video for Priya before she joins the team. Please introduce yourself, explain how you’ll work together, and share one thing you’re looking forward to. Keep your message under 45 seconds and submit it by Thursday.
This gives people enough direction to record something useful without scripting every word.
With VidDay group videos, the organizer can send coworkers one private invite link where they can upload video messages and photos without downloading an app or creating an account.
Everything is collected in one place, so the organizer doesn’t have to chase files through email attachments, shared drives, and team chats.
The messages can then be arranged into a simple sequence:
A title card with the employee’s name
A welcome from their manager
Introductions from immediate teammates
A message from their onboarding buddy
Short welcomes from other coworkers
A closing message from the team
The organizer can add text cards, choose a theme, include background music when it fits, and preview the finished video before sending it.
The video can be shared before the employee starts, included in a first-day email, or shown during a team welcome call.
You can also see how VidDay works from the invitation through to the finished group video.
Common mistakes to avoid
A few choices can make a well-intentioned welcome feel impersonal or overwhelming.
Making every message generic
Ten versions of “welcome to the team” don’t help the employee understand the people they’ll be working with. Give contributors different prompts so each message adds something.
Explaining too much
The employee will receive plenty of information during onboarding. Use the video to introduce people and relationships rather than condensing the employee handbook into spoken form.
Sharing personal details without permission
Avoid mentioning information about the employee’s family, health, background, or personal life unless they’ve already shared it openly and it’s clearly appropriate.
Relying on inside jokes
A light comment can help the team sound human. A string of references the employee doesn’t understand can make them feel excluded before they’ve arrived.
Expecting a reaction
The video is a welcome, not another assignment. Don’t require the employee to record a response or thank every contributor individually.
Make the team feel familiar
A useful new employee welcome video doesn’t need polished speeches or elaborate production.
It needs people who can explain why the employee was chosen, how they’ll work together, and where the new hire can turn when their first week produces a question nobody thought to include in the onboarding checklist.
The video works best after written materials have handled the logistics. That leaves managers and coworkers free to provide what an HR portal can’t: familiar faces, specific encouragement, and the feeling that people are ready for the new employee to arrive.
