Making a great first day in the United Kingdom
Reviewed by Mellow Editorial Team, HR & payroll content team
A great first day sets the tone for the entire employment relationship. Get the practical and legal foundations right before the new starter arrives, and the welcome almost takes care of itself.
Before they walk in the door
Most first-day problems are really pre-boarding failures. By the time a new employee arrives, you should have:
- Issued a written statement of particulars on or before day one. Under the Employment Rights Act 2025, day-one rights are strengthened, so there is no grace period here.
- Collected their starter information: full name, address, date of birth, National Insurance number and a completed starter declaration (formerly the P46 process). You need this to set up payroll correctly.
- Confirmed their right to work in the UK. Check original documents or use the Home Office online service for holders of a share code. Keep a copy. This check must happen before employment starts, not during it.
- Set up their record in payroll. Apply the correct tax code (usually 1257L for someone with no other employment and the full personal allowance of £12,570), register them in your Real Time Information (RTI) system, and enrol them in your pension scheme if they meet the auto-enrolment criteria.
- Prepared their workstation, login credentials, access passes and any equipment. Nothing undermines a first day faster than sitting idle waiting for IT.
The legal essentials on day one
A few things must happen on the first day or close to it.
Pension auto-enrolment. If your new starter is aged 22 to state pension age and earns above the earnings trigger, they must be enrolled in a qualifying workplace pension. Your minimum employer contribution is 3% of qualifying earnings; theirs is 5%. You have a short window to assess and enrol them, and you must write to them explaining what you have done.
Payroll registration. You must report the new starter to HMRC via a Full Payment Submission (FPS) on or before their first payday. RTI means there is no longer a separate new-starter notification; the FPS carries all the relevant data. Missing or late submissions attract penalties, so make sure the record is complete before that first pay run.
Statutory annual leave entitlement begins immediately. From day one, the employee starts accruing the statutory minimum of 5.6 weeks' leave (28 days including bank holidays for a five-day week). Some employers are surprised to learn that a new starter can, in principle, request leave in their first week. Your holiday policy can specify how leave is booked, but it cannot reduce the statutory entitlement.
The welcome itself
Legal compliance is necessary but not sufficient. The human side matters just as much for retention.
Assign a named point of contact — a buddy or line manager — who is available throughout the day. Brief them in advance so they are not visibly scrambling. A simple agenda, even just a rough one shared by email the day before, removes the anxiety of not knowing what to expect.
Introductions to the immediate team should feel personal, not like a tour of a museum. A team lunch or informal coffee is worth more than a stack of handbooks. That said, give the new starter the handbooks too — just do not make them the centrepiece of the day.
Cover the essentials without overwhelming: where things are, how to raise a problem, what the first week looks like, and when and how they will be paid. That last point matters more than many employers realise. A new employee who does not know their payday, or is uncertain whether their bank details were received, will be quietly anxious.
Onboarding as a process, not a single day
A good first day is the opening of an onboarding process that should run for at least the first 90 days. Set a check-in at the end of week one and again at one month. Keep them brief and genuinely two-way — ask what is unclear or frustrating, not just whether everything is fine.
Under the strengthened framework of the Employment Rights Act 2025, employees have more robust day-one protections, which means the cost of a poor start — and an early departure — is higher than it used to be. Investing time in structured onboarding reduces early attrition, and early attrition is expensive.
If you are running payroll across multiple locations or engaging workers in different ways, getting the starter process right in each jurisdiction becomes even more important — the UK requirements above apply regardless of where your wider business operates.
A checklist summary
Before day one: written statement issued, right-to-work check complete, payroll record created, equipment ready.
Day one: confirm starter declaration, explain pension enrolment, cover leave entitlement, make introductions, set week-one check-in.
Week one: FPS submitted on or before first payday, pension enrolment letter issued, first structured check-in held.
Getting these steps right consistently is less about effort and more about having a clear process and owning it before each new person joins.
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