The new-hire email signature template
A new colleague's first fortnight is when they send the most first-impression emails of their whole tenure — cold intros, welcome replies, first meetings booked. Ship them a branded signature on day one and every one of those emails looks like it comes from a serious company.
The template
{ First Last } { (pronouns) }
{ Role } · { Company }
{ Direct phone or calendar link }
{ Company website }
———————————
{ Optional shared team banner — currently: [what's new] }Six lines. No stock icons. No confidentiality disclaimer unless legal or medical. The banner is the company's shared marketing rotation — it's the same one on every teammate's signature, so the new hire looks like part of the team from send one.
The onboarding checklist
- Day −1 (offer accepted). Add the new hire's row in your signature tool: name, role, pronouns, direct line if any.
- Day 0 (start). Send the install link with their laptop. Two clicks in Gmail or Outlook and the signature is live — no HTML pasted, no formatting broken.
- Day 1 morning. Ask them to send one test email to their manager. It's the fastest way to confirm the signature actually installed (and it doubles as a first hello).
- Day 14. Check the signature is still consistent — some people fiddle with it in the first fortnight. A managed signature tool prevents this without being heavy-handed.
Six mistakes to avoid
- •Sending a Word file with "please copy this into Outlook". Half will forget, the other half will break the formatting.
- •Sending a PDF or PNG of the signature. Neither can be pasted into Gmail as text.
- •"Sent from my iPhone" left on for the first month. Turn off both the mobile default and add the real signature on iOS at setup time.
- •Photo hosted on Google Drive. It'll show as a red X in most inboxes because Drive links aren't public. Host on your signature tool or a CDN.
- •New hires with a different template from the rest of the company. The whole point is looking like one team.
- •No plan for when they leave. When a hire departs, the signature needs to come off every device before the account is closed — a signature tool takes ten seconds; a manual policy takes an IT ticket.
The onboarding-friendly version
Wren was built for teams of 1–100. HR adds a new row, hits invite, the new hire clicks a link — the signature installs in Gmail or Outlook in about 30 seconds. Same brand, same banner, same layout as every colleague on day one.
Try the builder →Common questions
Why give new hires a signature on day one?
First impressions land in the first week. A new hire sending 40 emails with a broken plain-text signature (or 'sent from my iPhone') is 40 impressions of your brand looking unfinished. It's also the fastest onboarding win HR can point to.
Should the signature include 'new hire' or 'joined in 2026'?
No. Treat the person like a full member of the team from day one — the signature should look identical to a colleague with three years' tenure. The exception: if the role interacts with customers immediately, add a soft line like 'Say hi — I'm new to the team' for the first fortnight.
Who owns rolling this out — HR or IT?
In small companies (under 30), HR. Above that, IT usually owns Exchange / Google Workspace policies, but the template and copy sit with brand or marketing. A signature tool is the least contentious answer: HR provisions in one place, IT doesn't have to touch mail server policies, brand controls the design.
How do we make sure it looks the same in Outlook and Gmail?
Only two options work reliably: a signature tool that generates email-safe HTML, or IT setting up a server-side signature policy (heavier, breaks reply threading). Do not copy a rich-formatted Word signature into Gmail — half the fonts and dividers will render broken.