PULTEVENT
New hire welcome event: 7 onboarding games that put names to faces in an hour
Thursday afternoon in a Dublin office, the fourth day of the September intake. Fourteen graduates in slightly too formal shirts sit along one side of the kitchen, and about forty existing staff lean against the counters with cans of fizzy water, pretending not to look at them. The TV on the wall, usually showing the sales dashboard, now shows fourteen faces in a grid under the words "Welcome, September crew." One of the graduates points at his own photo. It is from his passport. He regrets that.
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Onboarding usually covers the laptop, the benefits portal and the fire exits. What it rarely covers is the thing new starters actually worry about: who all these people are, and whether anyone will talk to them at lunch. A welcome event solves that in an hour, if it gives both sides something to do other than stand in two groups staring at each other.
PULTEVENT runs from a laptop browser on the office TV or projector. Everyone, new and existing staff, joins from their phones by scanning a QR code, no app and no account. Phones need internet, which in an office is rarely a problem. HR or the office manager can run the whole thing without an events team.
7 welcome games for new hires and the people who already work there
1 The welcome wall
A splash screen with the new starters' photos and names, a caption with the team or the intake month, confetti when the first person walks in.
How to run it. Ask new hires for a photo they like before day one. Do not use badge photos. Nobody likes their badge photo.
The office learns their faces without anyone having to walk up to them.
2 Guess the new starter
Each new hire sends one surprising fact. The fact appears on screen and existing staff guess from their phones which newcomer it belongs to.
How to run it. Ask for facts that open a conversation: a strange hobby, a place they lived, a skill nobody would expect.
Afterwards everyone has one thing to ask each new person, which is the hardest part solved.
3 Guess the manager
Now reverse it. Facts or childhood photos of team leads and managers appear, and the new hires guess who is who.
How to run it. Include the most senior person in the building, and make sure their photo is the funniest one.
It shows new starters that the people in charge are human, which takes a lot of first-week pressure off.
4 The office survival quiz
Questions every new starter needs answered but will not ask: which kettle is the good one, what day the free breakfast is, which meeting room has the broken blind, who to ask when the printer jams.
How to run it. Crowdsource the questions from the office. Mix new and existing staff in teams so the veterans explain the answers.
It is useful information disguised as a game, and it gets new and old staff talking in the same team.
5 The company in six moments
Six key events in the company's history, put in order from phones: founding, first office, the big product, the rebrand.
How to run it. Let one long-serving person tell the story behind each card after the reveal. Keep each story under a minute.
The culture section of the onboarding deck, but people remember it.
6 The buddy wheel
Spin the guest wheel to pair each new hire with an existing colleague outside their team for a coffee in the first month.
How to run it. Only put volunteers on the wheel from the existing staff side. Unwilling buddies make bad coffees.
Most new hires meet only their own team for months. This gives each one a friendly face somewhere else.
7 Messages from the leadership team
Short, informal video clips from leaders who cannot be there: a CEO in another time zone, a department head on a site visit.
How to run it. Ask for phone videos filmed in thirty seconds, not polished corporate productions. The informal ones land better.
New hires see that leadership noticed they arrived, which a welcome email does not quite do.
Faces before names
New starters' photos on the welcome screen, so the office recognizes them in the corridor tomorrow.
Both sides play
Games that make existing staff reveal something too, not only the new ones.
Remote hires included
Share the screen in a video call; remote joiners play from their phones like everyone else.
Reusable every intake
Build it once, then swap the names and photos for the next cohort.
When to hold it
Not on day one. On the first day new starters are drowning in passwords and paperwork. The end of the first week works best: they know a few names, they have questions, and they are ready to relax a bit. For monthly intakes, make it a fixed Thursday-afternoon slot so it becomes a habit rather than a special effort.
An hour is enough. Food and drinks at the end, not the start, so people stay for the games.
Getting existing staff to turn up
The failure mode of a welcome event is fourteen new hires and six existing staff, three of them from HR. Put it in calendars early. Ask team leads to bring their whole team. And give existing staff something to play for: the office quiz with mixed teams, and small prizes for the winning team.
"Why should I go to the new-starter thing?"
"Your boss's baby photo is in it."
Quiet new hires
Some people would rather do anything than introduce themselves to forty strangers. That is why most of these formats let new starters stay in their seats and answer from their phones. The spotlight moves around without landing on anyone for too long. If someone asks to skip their fact, skip it and say nothing.
Remote and hybrid joiners
A remote hire's first week can be very lonely. Include them properly: share the stage window in the video call, put their photo on the welcome wall like everyone else's, and let them play from their phone through the QR code on screen. Read their name out loud when they score.
International intakes
Graduate programs and relocations bring people who work in English but think in another language. Guest screens follow each phone's language, so buttons and instructions appear in theirs. Your questions stay as you wrote them in the quiz builder, so keep them short and skip jokes that rely on local slang.
Building it once
Start the free 3-day demo, without a card, and build the welcome event for your next intake. Afterwards you only swap the names, photos and facts each month. Keeping it means a single payment for a licence, no subscription; pricing is on pultevent.ru/en.
About the author
PULTEVENT was built by Ruslan Barashkin, who has hosted weddings, birthdays and office parties since 2014: over 500 events, best host of Moscow 2024 and of Saint Petersburg 2023 at the TOP 100 Awards. He made it for his own nights first. The rest is at pultevent.ru/en.
How to run a new hire welcome event
- 1
Before day one, ask new starters for a photo they like and one surprising fact.
- 2
Collect manager facts or childhood photos and crowdsource office survival questions.
- 3
Build the welcome wall, the two guessing rounds, the quiz and the buddy wheel.
- 4
Book an hour at the end of the first week and ask team leads to bring their teams.
- 5
Put the QR code on the office screen, run the games, and read out every name.
- 6
Spin the buddy wheel last, then open the food so pairs can talk straight away.
FAQ
How long should a new hire welcome event be?
Does it work for one new starter, not a cohort?
Can remote hires take part?
Do we need an events team?
Can we reuse it every month?
Is there a ready-made onboarding quiz?
How much does it cost?
See also
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