Beyond the Frame

1. Introduction
2. Something was missing
3. Example
4. Developing Resources

Introduction

The purpose of onboarding procedures in any organization is to introduce new employees to the company and its procedures, ensuring that their start is as smooth as possible.

In my first role as a technical writer, there were already established onboarding procedures:

• HR had its own onboarding procedure.
• Teams also had initial training for new members.

Something was missing

I was often asked for documents where colleagues could quickly grab basic information.

After many years in the company, I was able to create a new document section with pages containing only essential information. Each document would also have links to more comprehensive documents on the same or related subjects at the bottom of the page.

Example

The following example illustrates a simple onboarding document, and does not contain actual data:

The number of links was not limited. In some cases, there was an entire network of links connecting related documents.

Developing Resources

First, I created the document base and a glossary with the most common terminology and acronyms.

Since the IT department had a well-defined workflow, I also created a flowchart illustrating the roles of each team during the two-week release cycles.

With these resources, standardized training sessions could be established and organized.

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