The "Day 1" Email

On their first day at PSI, new employees from senior leaders to assistants and intern, receive a special email from our CEO, Karl Hofmann. They are told, to start:

Welcome to PSI! You’re joining an amazing and hard-working family of 7,000 people around the world whose mission is to save and improve lives. No matter what you are doing for us, always remember that you are part of achieving that mission.

Most, after they return from their inaugural team lunch, have a brief email exchange with Karl. They usually thank him for the note and express appreciation for our values or commitment to our mission.

It's the "Day 1" Email, a practice that we learned from the folks at Andela and that they, in turn, learned from Apple. The email is sent to each of PSI's new headquarters and international staff in the late-morning of their first day, and we've encouraged our country-based HR teams to work with their leadership to have the same from their country representative.

Seems like a lot of work for Karl, though, right? Wrong. We worked with our in-house software engineer to automatically send the email from Karl to all new employees.

Karl appreciates the opportunity to interact with new employees and to understand who's joining the organization. But it means way more to new staff who get to interact with our president on their very first day. They receive a motivating message about what makes PSI different and special, why we do what we do (to serve our archetypal consumer, Sara), and that our values (measurement, honesty, pragmatism, commitment, trust, collaboration) are important to us all and are modeled from the top.

The exchange reveals a unique and attractive aspect of our culture: that our senior leaders are accessible to all levels of the organization. It's part of our ongoing effort to make all new employees feel welcome, integrated, engaged, and set up for success in their new roles at PSI.