What to send an employee before arrival so their first 48 hours in Málaga need no support

Build the briefing around the first 48 hours, not the first six months

Most pre-arrival packs fail for the same reason: they are organised by topic rather than by time. An employee landing at Málaga Airport on a Sunday evening does not need a summary of the Spanish tax system. They need to know how to get to the door, how to open it, whether the Wi-Fi works, and where to buy milk before Monday morning. A good pre-arrival relocation briefing Spain-bound employees can actually use separates the urgent from the eventual, and puts the urgent on the first page.

The test is simple. If your employee has to send a message to anyone — you, the line manager, the landlord, the relocation agency — during their first two days, something was missing from the pack. Everything below is built backwards from that standard.

The arrival page: everything needed between the aircraft door and the first night

Put this on one page, in one file, and make it readable on a phone with no signal. Employees land with a dead battery more often than anyone plans for.

• The full address in Spanish format, including street, number, floor or residence name, postcode and city. Spanish addresses put the number after the street name, and a driver who reads it in the wrong order will lose ten minutes.
• How to get there from the airport, with the realistic option named. From Málaga Airport into the city, a taxi from the official rank is the simplest choice for someone arriving with luggage; the train from the airport station to María Zambrano is the alternative. State which one your company reimburses and how.
• Access instructions. This is where most packs are weakest. If the property uses keyless entry, the employee needs the code or app invitation in hand before departure, plus a fallback contact. Palacete 10 uses smart keyless entry, so no one has to meet a flight or hand over a key — but the credential still has to be issued in advance, and your pack should say when it arrives and who sends it.
• A named human with a phone number that works on WhatsApp. One name, not a general inbox. WhatsApp is the default business channel in Spain and works on airport Wi-Fi.
• What is already in the residence. Bedding, towels, kitchen equipment, washer and dryer, iron — list it, because the alternative is an employee buying a duplicate set on day one and expensing it.

Internet, power and utilities: confirm rather than promise

A relocating employee's first genuine anxiety is connectivity, because the first evening usually involves a call home and the first morning usually involves a call with head office. Tell them the network name and password in writing before they travel, not on a card left on a counter. In furnished corporate housing the internet, electricity, water, heating and cooling should all be live before check-in and billed through the company, which removes the entire category of setting up accounts, paying deposits and waiting for an installation appointment. If your accommodation does not work that way, the briefing has to say so plainly, with dates, because an employee who discovers on arrival that they must arrange a utility contract in Spanish will escalate it to you within the hour.

The same applies to mobile connectivity. Tell the employee whether their corporate SIM roams in Spain at no additional cost or whether they should buy a local prepaid SIM. Spanish operators sell prepaid SIMs in high-street shops and require a passport or NIE for registration.

Documents and registrations: separate what must be done before travel from what can wait

This is the section where briefings most often create unnecessary panic. Be explicit about sequence.

Before travel, the employee should have their passport, any visa or residence authorisation, the employment or assignment letter, the corporate accommodation details in writing, and European Health Insurance Card or private medical cover documents. Family members travelling later need their own timeline.

After arrival, the usual Spanish sequence involves a foreigner identity number (NIE), social security registration where applicable, municipal registration (empadronamiento) at the town hall, and opening a local bank account if the assignment structure requires one. None of these can be done from a hotel lobby at midnight, and none of them are a first-48-hours problem. Immigration categories, timelines and documentary requirements change; your briefing should point the employee to your immigration counsel or relocation provider for current requirements rather than restating rules that may have moved. Say who books the appointments and who attends.

The neighbourhood page: five minutes of local knowledge saves a day

What an arriving employee needs locally is narrow: a supermarket, a pharmacy, a cash machine, a café that opens early, and a bus or metro stop. Name them by type and walking distance rather than sending a map link that requires data. Add three practical notes about Spanish daily rhythm — that many smaller shops close in the early afternoon, that dinner service starts late, and that Sunday opening is limited — because these three facts prevent most first-weekend frustration.

It also helps to describe the character of the area honestly. At Palacete 10, everyday shops, cafés, supermarkets and pharmacies are a minute's walk away and public transport is the same, with the historic centre fifteen minutes on foot; the neighbourhood and travel times are residential and local rather than tourist-oriented, which is what most assignees want by week two even if they do not know it in week one.

Work readiness on day one

If the employee is expected online on Monday, say where they will work. A dining table is not a workstation for a five-day week. Confirm whether the residence has a dedicated desk or office space, whether there is a residents' work area in the building, and what the office access arrangements are on the first morning — building entry, security registration, IT collection and the name of the person meeting them. Palacete 10's shared residents-only work suite is available around the clock on site, which gives an arriving employee somewhere to take a call on day one without leaving the building.

A short checklist to send with the pack

• Address in Spanish format, plus airport-to-door instructions
• Access credentials and the date they are issued
• Named contact with a WhatsApp number
• Wi-Fi network and password in writing
• Inventory of what is already provided
• Mobile and roaming instructions
• Document checklist, split into before-travel and after-arrival
• Five local essentials with walking times
• First-morning work instructions and the person meeting them

A pre-arrival relocation briefing Spain assignees can follow without help is not long. It is specific. If your accommodation supplier can confirm access, connectivity and inclusions in writing before departure, most of the pack writes itself — and questions about leasing, invoicing and what is included are answered on our frequently asked questions page.

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