Sit with whoever started this week
New starters eat alone for longer than anyone realizes, and decide how they feel about a place in the first fortnight.
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Why it lands
Onboarding covers systems and org charts and almost never covers the thing that actually determines whether someone stays: whether they have anyone to eat lunch with. A new person cannot invite themselves without it being a request, so they wait, and the longer they wait the harder it gets. Two weeks of eating at a desk teaches someone that this is a place where you are on your own.
How
Ask on their second or third day, not the first when they are being shepherded anyway. Go to them rather than saying “join us sometime” — a standing invitation puts the work back on the person least able to do it. Talk about anything except the job.
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