A library of document templates is a great asset for your business. It can streamline workflows, ensure consistency, and free up valuable time. Whether you work alone or with a visual brand designer like Beyond the Surface, the effort involved in creating such a library more than pays off.
In a previous post, we explored the types of documents that can easily be made into templates. This is especially beneficial for documents that contain a lot of standardised content: information that never changes, or is only periodically updated. One great example? The new hire onboarding guide.
Streamline your onboarding
Whenever a new person joins the team, there’s a lot to be done. Certain processes have to be carried out by different people within the organisation, such as HR and payroll. And the new arrival needs to take in and process a lot of information before they can get up to speed in their new role. Having a standard guide (or guides) at your disposal can do a lot to make their acclimation quicker and easier for everyone involved.
Some of this information will change fairly rapidly. For example, team members can move within the organisation, leave, or be replaced – including by your new hire. New targets and KPIs might be set, and there’s client turnover, too. So in these respects, your onboarding guide will need to be continuously updated.
Depending on the role, there may also be specific things your new hire needs to know. Their job description, their place in the organigram, their key contacts and processes – these are all individual details that can’t be standardised. They’ll also be assigned particular tasks, and given their own probation schedule.
However, certain things will only change rarely, if at all. The company’s mission and values, for example, and the benefits it offers to its employees. Creating a clean and compelling standard text for these is a great way to make your new hire feel welcome, all while saving time and energy for personalising the rest.
How to create your onboarding template in five steps
Creating an effective onboarding template is simple. All you have to do is work through our short checklist.
Step 1: Look at the onboarding paperwork for your most recent hire. What information did you need to give them over the entire course of the process?
Step 2: Paste all this information into a single document for easy reference.
Step 3: What information has changed since then? Highlight everything that’s subject to change and mark it as needing review each time.
Step 4: Collate everything that hasn’t changed and lay it out clearly in a new document. Leave designated spaces for the new/updated information and note what should be included.
Step 5 (optional, but worth it!): Work with your in-house designer, or an external visual efficiency partner like Beyond the Surface, to make the fixed parts of the template as attractive and inspiring as possible.
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Just get in touch to set up your free discovery call with our founder, Francesca, or to ask us any questions you might have about the process.
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