Kit of Choice : A Smarter Way to Design New Hire Welcome Kits

Welcome kits have been doing the same job for years. You join a company, someone hands you a box, and inside you find the usual suspects, a bottle, a notebook, maybe a bag if the budget was kind that month. It’s familiar, harmless, and honestly a little too predictable. Nothing wrong with it, but nothing that makes you think, “Ah, this company really gets me.”

But the way we work today isn’t predictable at all. People join remotely, in batches, in trickles, on Mondays, on Thursdays, sometimes from three different cities at once. And suddenly the “one kit for everyone” idea stops feeling efficient and starts feeling out of touch. That’s where Kit of Choice comes in, not as a big reinvention, but as a small, very human upgrade to the welcome moment.

Understanding the Kit of Choice Model

Think of it as a tiny decision added to onboarding, just to make things feel a little more personal. Instead of handing everyone the same box, the company offers a few curated kit options, maybe a more eco-friendly one, a more functional one, a more aesthetic one, and the new hire gets to choose what they want.

It can happen before joining, on Day 1, during onboarding week, or whenever it fits the company’s rhythm. The employee gets a link, clicks through the options, picks a welcome kit, and the system takes over: dispatch, tracking, all of it. To the employee it feels simple; in the background, it quietly fixes half the chaos HR never talks about.

How a Kit of Choice Improves the New Hire Experience

New joiners don’t warm up to Kit of Choice because the kits are radically different. They warm up to it because the experience finally feels like it was built with them in mind. Here’s what consistently shows up across organisations:

1. It gives them a small moment of control

Onboarding can feel like a tightly choreographed routine. Choosing a kit breaks that pattern and gives new hires one simple decision that feels personal, something that belongs to them, not the system.

2. The kit feels intentional, not random

A sustainability-minded employee can gravitate toward eco-friendly options. Someone who prioritises utility might pick a more functional set. The kit they eventually unbox feels like a reflection of who they are.

3. It becomes a memorable touchpoint

The selection → anticipation → unboxing cycle becomes a natural engagement loop. Instead of “I got a kit,” the narrative becomes “I chose mine.” That small distinction changes emotional recall.

4. It strengthens early brand connection

Letting employees choose signals respect. It quietly communicates, “Your preferences matter here.”

And that’s a powerful message for someone just settling in.

Why HR Teams Prefer a Kit of Choice Workflow

Kit of Choice doesn’t just improve the welcome experience, it solves several operational headaches HR teams deal with silently.

1. No more stocking for guesswork

Because people select digitally, procurement becomes accurate. Stock moves based on actual demand, not projections or buffers.

2. Dispatch is automated end-to-end

Once a selection is made, the system handles the logistics. No team member has to track orders, chase couriers, or reroute parcels manually.

3. Zero manual distribution

Whether it’s Day 1 in-office or onboarding three remote employees in three different cities, the experience stays consistent without local handovers.

4. Cleaner, consolidated tracking

All data, selections, deliveries, statuses, feedback, sits in one workflow dashboard.

No more spreadsheets, inbox digging, or “Did this reach them yet?” loops.

It’s the rare scenario where HR work genuinely decreases, while the employee experience meaningfully improves.

EY’s Approach to Personalised Welcome Kits

EY reached a point where their welcome kits were functional, but not expressive of who they were becoming as a brand. They wanted new hires to feel the company’s emphasis on innovation, sustainability, and intentional design, and the traditional single-kit model just wasn’t carrying that message anymore.

What They Wanted to Change

• A welcome that felt more personal, not predictable
• A kit that echoed EY’s sustainability goals
• A process that didn’t demand extra effort from HR teams spread across locations

What They Actually Did

EY introduced three curated kit options that blended core EY essentials with eco-friendly touches like cork diaries, bamboo stationery, and seed-based accessories. Instead of receiving a standard kit, new hires logged into a digital portal, chose the version that fit them best, and had it delivered directly.

What Happened Next

• Personalisation felt real, not performative

New hires picked what suited them, and the welcome stopped feeling like something assigned by default.

• The experience stayed consistent, everywhere

Whether someone joined remotely or in person, the welcome landed the same way across locations.

• Sustainability became part of the kit, not a side note

Eco-friendly elements were built into every option, without creating extra steps or initiatives.

• The welcome finally felt like EY

More than the products, it was the thought behind the process that new hires connected with.

If you’re curious how this was set up and scaled, the full EY case study walks through the workflow in detail.

The System Behind the Kit of Choice Workflow

What made EY’s Kit of Choice work wasn’t just the idea of offering options, but the structure supporting it. Choice didn’t create complexity because it was anchored to a single, dedicated portal.

That portal sits at the centre of Mandaala’s MerchTech approach. Employees see their kit options, make a selection, and move on. Behind that moment, every choice is automatically tied to dispatch, delivery, and tracking, so HR isn’t coordinating the process step by step.

That’s the shift MerchTech enables. The experience stays personal on the outside because the system quietly carries the complexity underneath, allowing Kit of Choice to scale without becoming hard to manage.

Conclusion : Making Space for Choice

At its heart, Kit of Choice is a reminder that first impressions don’t need to be loud to be meaningful. A small moment of choice can change how a welcome feels, from something issued by default to something that feels considered. EY’s example shows how that shift, when done thoughtfully, can quietly strengthen connection from the very start.

What this points to is a larger change in how employee experiences are being designed. Less manual effort, fewer one-off fixes, and more intention built into the everyday moments that shape how people feel at work. As these experiences become easier to run behind the scenes, they also become easier to personalise, and that’s where engagement starts to feel natural, not forced.

If you want to see how this would work in your context, booking time on our calendar is the easiest way to get into it.

Mandaala is the solution arm of PrintStop India.