Starting at a company with a Notion of what's going on
It's your first day at Watching-It Company
You've just been welcomed with a talk about the business's values, purpose and it's current missions. Now that you're brought up to speed on the big picture items, you're warmly welcomed by your new team and one of the team members, Doris brings you to your new desk.
Open on your screen is this page.
"Welcome to Notion," she says.
(here is a link if you'd like to follow along with the read-only version)
"Notion is a software we use to store our internal knowledge. On here you'll find everything you need to get an idea of how we operate. You can see we've got our values, goals and targets, training manuals and standard operating procedures, a breakdown of our current projects and much more. There is also an onboarding checklist for you to go through near the bottom."
"I'm going to give you about an hour to explore and I'll be back to answer any questions you have."
For the next hour you:
Check out the onboarding process
Look at your department's action items and learn about what projects they currently have underway, their challenges and see how people work together to solve problems.
Read about the company's strategy and how it has been broken down into smaller goals with action items designated to teams or individuals.
See that the most repeated processes have documentation you can use to perform those tasks with little or no guidance.
Review previous meetings within your department to get up-to-speed on what is going on.
Below are corresponding screens for actions described above
Relative to your old job
After just an hour you realized that you're more informed about this business than you were after a week at your previous job. All you received there was a talk with payroll and verbal communication with colleagues who themselves had little to no idea of the purpose or values of the company. The notes you took while being taught about your new role were contradicted later by other members of staff who had different ways of doing things.
Key Onboarding Benefits of Notion
Allows for independent learning.
The written information is more reliable, consistent and comprehensive relative to verbal training alone.
Information is organized and digestible. No more reading through seemingly random email chains.
It is participative by nature as it's easy to ask questions and interact with material.
Note from the Author: Context is key
When I start at a company, I'm most effective when I can understand how all the cogs in the machine work in driving us towards our goals. Without context for what is happening and why, it's hard to know what the boundaries are and where value is being created.
Providing context for how the vision of the company is being achieved through every departments' activities is extremely helpful.
Whether you're an incoming employee working within one department, or joining management with hopes of integrating the efforts of many departments, there is a clear picture for you to view of the current state of the business as well as its plans.
Read on in this continued Notion series to see how this can be helpful from Management's perspective.
Want help setting up your Notion? Check out Services