New members usually encounter some problems when they join a team, including knowing little about the company and team functions, feeling unfamiliar with specific business situations, having difficulty in getting work started, etc. The following best practices can effectively integrate information and help new members have a smooth and productive transition.
Create onboarding guide with Docs
| Integrate information
When new members join the team, they need to know many different aspects of work. If work information is too scattered to , its necessary to prepare an onboarding guide.
You can create a detailed onboarding guide with Docs to integrate information. New members can not only know all aspects of work through the guide but also quickly search for useful information when they need it. The guide should include three types of content:
- •Company information
This part should introduce the company's vision, values, systems, norms, resources, etc., to help new members know the overall situation of the company and develop a preliminary understanding of the company culture.
- •Team information
In a company, each team has different targets and tasks. New members need to fully understand their team's situation, including team OKRs, priorities, plans, etc.
- •Newcomers' challenges
After reading the background materials, you can assign some specific tasks to help new members familiarize themselves with the workflow and tools, such as creating a meeting schedule for the team, co-editing a document with colleagues, etc. New members can learn by doing tasks step by step.
In addition to texts, you can also insert more content into the onboarding guide, including pictures, videos, maps, websites, group cards, etc., to help new members read and understand better.
Share team knowledge base
| Self-help for comprehensive team knowledge
The onboarding guide mainly provides background introduction. If new members need to know more information related to specific business situations, they need to refer to each team's knowledge bases and specific folders. Having proper information stored and knowledge management of each team can greatly help new members integrate into your team as soon as possible.
You can classify and store the important and frequently used documents in Shared Space to create a team knowledge base. New members can search and learn through the knowledge base by themselves. Its also convenient for them to access relevant materials at any time in the future.
Read group announcement
| Focus on specific projects
New members will be added to the group chats related to their job responsibilities. You can create a specific work guide in group announcements, and remind new members to read carefully so that they can quickly absorb key information. You can refer to the following categories to write a group announcement:
- •Background: eam strategies, blueprints, OKRs, etc.
- •Project planning and progress: roject plans, progress reports, data, charts, etc.
- •Workflow and specifications: ollaborative process descriptions, writing specifications, etc.
- •Important references: ublished articles, conference and meeting minutes, etc.
- •Resources and tools: nternal resources, common tools platforms, etc.
By reading the group announcement, new members can fully understand the requirements of specific projects or tasks and prepare their corresponding work.
View pinned items
| Prioritize key information
In addition to the group announcement, the pinned items in group chats are also important. The pinned items will be constantly increased and updated with daily communication. You can remind new members to prioritize the pinned items so that they can quickly get to the point and keep up with the rest of the team. New members can view pinned items in a single group chat or in all group chats.
Browse group chat history
| Familiar with communication patterns and contexts
After reading the important materials above, new members can browse the group chat history related to their job responsibilities. In this way, new members can not only review the recent messages but also have a preliminary understanding of the team's communication patterns and habits.