The Phases of Welcome: Why Every Company Needs to Think Beyond Day One (wisdom from the Build a Bear Founder)
I had the great pleasure of speaking with Maxine Clark, founder of Build-a-Bear, and while there were many insights I gleaned from the conversation, one particular gem stopped me in my tracks. "The challenge every workplace has is that people are joining the company all the time and are at different phases of welcome."
This simple observation captures something profound about modern organizations that most companies completely miss. If your organization isn't actively thinking about "phases of welcome," you should be. Here's why—and how to build cohesion across these critical stages.
What Are Phases of Welcome?
Traditional onboarding assumes a linear progression: hire, orient, integrate, done. But the reality is far messier and more nuanced. At any given moment, your workplace contains people experiencing vastly different levels of welcome, comfort, and belonging.
Consider your team right now. You likely have:
Someone who started last week, still learning where the bathrooms are (or how to login and use all the software for remote work)
A three-month employee who knows the basics but feels uncertain about unspoken cultural rules
A one-year individual contributor who's comfortable but still discovering how influence really works
A five-year employee who's deeply embedded but may be experiencing "belonging drift" after a recent reorganization
A twenty year veteran who may feel alienated after a recent technology transformation
These aren't just different tenure levels—they're different phases of psychological and social integration that require distinct approaches.
The Hidden Cost of Ignoring Welcome Phases
When companies treat all non-new employees the same, several problems emerge:
Exclusion by assumption: Veterans unconsciously use insider language, reference historical context, and assume knowledge that newer team members don't possess. This creates invisible barriers that can persist for months or even years.
Uneven psychological safety: Someone in month three may hesitate to speak up in meetings dominated by people in year three, not because of hierarchy, but because of welcome phase mismatch.
Lost institutional knowledge transfer: Without intentional bridges between phases, valuable context dies in silos rather than flowing naturally to those who need it most.
Fragmented team identity: Teams struggle to develop shared culture when members exist in completely different welcome universes.
Building Bridges Across Welcome Phases
The most successful organizations don't just acknowledge these phases—they actively design for them.
Create Welcome Phase Awareness
Start by making the invisible visible. Help your team recognize and name where people are in their welcome journey. This isn't about labeling people, but about developing collective awareness that allows for more inclusive interactions.
Consider implementing regular "welcome check-ins" where team members can share not just their professional updates, but how close they feel to being truly integrated. This normalizes the reality that belonging is an ongoing process, not a box to check.
It All Doesn’t Have to Be SO Serious
At Film Forward, we’re an entirely remote team. Without careful attention, the feeling of newness can last a long time because you only interact with your teammates during scheduled meetings - there is no water cooler hangout (and no, Slack channels do not count.) So we have a Monday 30 minute check in for the entire team which is entirely social in nature. Everyone logs into a zoom meeting and I pose a very silly get-to-know-you question. A few examples:
What's something everyone seems to love that you just don't get?
If you could wake up tomorrow as an expert in a brand new skill, what would it be and why?
Everyone on the team looks forward to these checks ins because we have a good laugh, and we also get to know each other better through the creative portal of these questions. New folks on the team are folded in and listened to with the same excitement as everyone else, so every new person has at least one meeting a week where they can feel equally expert as everyone else.
Design Intentional Connection Points
Random coffee chats and team lunches aren't enough. Create structured opportunities for people in different welcome phases to connect meaningfully:
Knowledge bridging sessions: Pair recent hires with mid-tenure employees (not just senior veterans) to share perspectives on current challenges.
At Film Forward, we have monthly knowledge sharing sessions where one member of the team presents something from their expertise. This week, our Sr Manager of Customer Support will be sharing his customer support philosophy and how that translates into his workflow.
Cultural translation moments: Build time into meetings for context-setting that helps people across all phases contribute meaningfully.
This kind of level-setting can be a very simple meeting practice of asking folks to spend 5 minutes sharing their context and perspectives on the task-at-hand. (This is where having a clear perspective-sharing practice can help - we teach this in our Effective Leaders and Effective Teams curricula at Film Forward.)
Reverse mentoring opportunities: Let newer employees share fresh perspectives with established team members.
For goodness’ sakes, why hire someone if not for their fresh perspective and expertise?! Making space for that fresh perspective can advance a new employee’s feeling of welcome to a team, by showing them that they are valued already.
Evolve Your Communication Practices
Examine how your team communicates and identify where you might unconsciously be stepping over someone’s “welcome phase”:
Do you reference decisions made "before Sarah joined" without explaining the context?
Are meeting discussions accessible to someone who's been there six months, not just six years?
Do you create space for questions that might seem "basic" but are actually sophisticated queries from someone in a different welcome phase?
Normalize Welcome as an Ongoing Process
Perhaps most importantly, reject the fiction that someone is either "onboarded" or not. The feeling of welcome can shift. Reorganization can rapidly move a five-year veteran back into an earlier welcome phase. Market pivots can make everyone feel like they're starting over. (We’re all feeling this right now.)
Acknowledge this reality explicitly. By creating language around phases of welcome, you open everyone in the company to the awareness that feeling fully welcomed and integrated is cyclical, not permanent - and it’s part of everyone’s collective responsibility.
The Ripple Effects of Getting This Right
Organizations that master the phases of welcome see remarkable results. Team cohesion strengthens because people aren't divided by invisible integration barriers. Innovation increases when new perspectives are genuinely valued and heard. Retention improves because people feel seen and supported throughout their entire journey, not just in their first 90 days.
Most importantly, these companies create cultures where everyone—regardless of tenure—feels genuinely welcomed and valued for their unique contribution.
Your Next Step
Take a moment to consider your own workplace. Can you identify the different phases of welcome that exist on your team? More importantly, what would change if you started designing your interactions, meetings, and culture with these phases in mind?
The companies that thrive in the future will be those that recognize a fundamental truth: welcome isn't a moment, it's an ongoing practice. And the best teams are those that actively nurture belonging across every phase of the journey.
The question isn't whether your people are at different phases of welcome—they are. The question is whether you're going to acknowledge this reality and build something better because of it.
