How to Choose a Corporate Notebook for Employee Onboarding

An onboarding notebook gets more use than almost any other piece of new-hire merchandise, because it is the one item a new employee actually opens in their first week rather than putting in a drawer. Getting the specification right matters more here than for a one-off gift.

A5

A5 is the right size for an onboarding notebook: large enough for real note-taking through induction sessions and training, small enough to carry between meeting rooms without being a burden. PrintOnline's Santhome Hardcover A5 Notebook is built around this size specifically. See A5 vs A6 vs A4 notebooks for corporate branding if you are weighing size against a smaller, lighter-touch option.

Ruled pages

Ruled, not blank or dotted, is the practical default for onboarding, since most new hires will be taking direct notes in induction sessions rather than sketching or journaling. The Santhome A5 notebook ships with 192 ruled pages on ivory white paper, giving a full year or more of regular use for most roles.

Pen holder

A built-in pen holder, or an elastic pen loop where fitted, keeps a pen physically attached to the notebook, which matters more than it sounds for a first-week new hire who has not yet built the habit of carrying their own pen everywhere. The Santhome A5 notebook includes a pen holder as a standard feature. If the specific notebook you are considering does not list this feature, confirm it directly before ordering rather than assuming it is included.

Bookmark

A ribbon bookmark, where fitted, is a small but genuinely useful feature for a notebook someone is filling in over weeks, letting them find their current page instantly rather than flipping through. Not every notebook format includes one; check the specific product's feature list rather than assuming it across the range.

Elastic

An elastic closure band, standard on the Santhome A5, keeps the notebook shut in a bag, protects the pages from bending, and gives the notebook a clean, finished look when closed. For an onboarding kit that travels in a new-hire welcome bag alongside other items, this matters more than it might for a desk-only notebook.

Logo placement

For an onboarding notebook, place the logo on the front cover, sized to be clearly legible without dominating the entire cover. UV printing, the confirmed branding method on the Santhome range, reproduces a full-colour logo cleanly on the hardcover surface; see UV printing vs laser engraving on notebooks for how the branding is actually applied. Keep the logo to the front cover alone for onboarding kits rather than adding it to every page, which keeps production simpler and the cost lower.

Packaging

How the notebook arrives matters for the unboxing moment of a first day. Some notebook products in PrintOnline's range, such as the Cork Notebook and Bamboo Pen set, are packed in a gift box as standard; confirm packaging options for your chosen notebook directly, since not every product in the range includes gift packaging by default, and a simple added box can lift the whole onboarding kit's presentation for a modest extra cost.

Matching pens

If you want the notebook and pen bundled as a single ordered item rather than sourced separately, PrintOnline offers several notebook-plus-pen sets directly, including the A5 Hard Cover Notebook with Pen (XD) from AED 9 and the A5 Notebook with Pen (Libellet) from AED 13. If your chosen notebook does not come with a matching pen built in, ordering a pen separately and packing them together in the onboarding kit is the alternative, and matching the pen's colour or finish to the notebook cover is worth the small extra attention for a kit that is meant to look considered rather than assembled.

Quantity planning

Order onboarding notebooks against your hiring forecast, not just current headcount, since these are typically reordered in batches as new cohorts start rather than as one-off large runs. Because per-unit cost is likely to fall with volume, it is often more efficient to plan a two-to-three-month hiring buffer into one order than to reorder small batches every few weeks; confirm your exact volume pricing on the product page or via WhatsApp, since specific quantity breaks are set per product.

Order your employee onboarding notebooks from PrintOnline.

Related: the complete notebook printing guide and notebook pricing in the UAE.