“The best onboarding experience I've ever had.”

This is the story of how a kit, a cadence, and a commitment to getting the details right turned a gifting program into a cornerstone of one of tech's best onboarding experiences.

Fin is the Customer Agent company delivering perfect customer experiences, from support to sales to commerce. They also, as it turns out, care deeply about how they welcome the people who build it.

Rebeca Marx oversees Fin’s global company onboarding program from the People Programs team. Three years in, she’s been instrumental in crafting everything from the curriculum to the kit that lands on a new hire's doorstep before day one, collaborating with Fin’s workplace and brand teams, as well as &Open, to build a program that can scale.

When Rebeca joined, new hire gifting sat in a grey area between the Workplace team and People Programs. As Fin's headcount started growing by the hundreds, that ambiguity made it harder to scale effectively. With new cohorts starting across six different offices every two weeks — sometimes 35 people at a time, from San Francisco to Berlin — the program needed a clear owner, a clear process, and a way to scale without losing what made it good.

Three things were top of mind:

Make a great first impression
For an increasingly global workforce spread across five different countries, the program needed to meet new hires where they are, making the experience feel personal before they even start. Sending welcome kits to people’s homes ahead of their start date creates a moment of surprise and delight, wherever they are in the world.

Make it repeatable, at scale
Hiring every two weeks, sometimes 35 people at a time, means one poorly designed process compounds fast. The program had to be something the team could run without running themselves into the ground.

Make it current
In April 2024, Fin introduced new brand elements. Every touchpoint needed updating. Fin's brand team worked directly with &Open's designers to get new designs made, approved, and into production.

Four items. Simple in theory, but the details matter.

The sweatshirt is a great example of listening to your audience: when new hires queried the boxy fit, we sent Fin more samples, they chose their favorite, and the new crew is a big hit. Similarly, the backpack was updated to a waterproof model — a detail no one asks for, but then can't imagine doing without.

And two more classics, but better: the water bottle is made using ocean-bound plastic, helping to reduce waste while keeping the planet clean and your drinks cold. The notebook is the product of Leuchtturm1917’s century of design experience, a physical moment in a digital-first world.

Intention, quality, listening to feedback: things new hires notice.

And the kit doesn't just look good, it arrives at the right time. Fin now delivers to home addresses before the first day begins. New hires choose where it goes. For a growing number of international relocations and global mobility cases, that flexibility matters more than it might seem.

Behind the scenes, the &Open platform gives Rebeca's team full visibility, allowing them to track orders, resend links, and move quickly to accommodate every new hire — and our Gift Catalog allows for immediate reorders. It also gathers feedback from recipients, so you know exactly what’s resonating and why.

The numbers are clear: 98% favorable onboarding scores over the last year (based on Fin onboarding surveys). But what does that look like in practice, and why?

Fin onboards fully in person, across all their global office hubs. New hires regularly arrive on their first week already wearing the sweater or carrying the backpack they received at home. It's a small thing, but meaningful: they're already part of the team.

And before they've even started, new hires engage with their gift unprompted. Notes of excitement. Thanks for the quality. Enthusiasm about joining. It's the kind of signal that's hard to manufacture and easy to lose if the experience falls short.

The advice Rebeca would give anyone starting a gifting program from scratch:

And two more things she'd tell you:

Set the expectation early
Fin's new learning management system now tells new hires to expect a gift from &Open in the two weeks before they start. The gift becomes anticipated, not surprising. That anticipation is part of the experience.

Iterate on the details
The sweater changed. The backpack changed. The feedback loop between Fin, their new hires, and &Open made both better. That's not a one-off project. That's a program.