On-boarding is a Knowledge Management activity because we transfer knowledge about the workings of an organization to new members of the community. Most companies have robust general on-boarding processes that involves a variety of trainings and meetings in different formats. Knowledge sharing specific to your department is not always included in the on-boarding process.

Sharing department and team practices, tips and tricks when a new person starts helps them get up to speed faster and feel more included. For example, sharing the most important places to store information enables a new team member begin to assemble important navigation information. Information that seems self-evident isn’t always to someone who is not familiar with the culture.

You can easily create an on-boarding program in your department using existing tools. Contact your KM team.  Check the resources already in place or those that may easily be findable. Start small. Decide on the key pieces of knowledge that will help your new team member feel productive quickly. Perhaps there are some basic resources that would help your new people get oriented faster such as the URL to department portal page, a list of bios of the leadership team, links to relevant information silos that may not be obvious to someone new. Also, recorded trainings, any local help pages and tips and tricks for using an internal search engine are helpful in getting people up and running quickly. Perhaps showing people what to store where would prevent problems later?

Gather the basics together in a formatted document or on an Intranet page for easy access.  Send the document or instructions on how to access the information regularly to new team members. Eventually, you could turn this document or page into a 15-30 minute meeting, in which you could show the resources. A once a month, in-person, orientation meeting for everyone new would also introduce new team members to each other to start creating bonds. Inviting the entire department periodically would give seasoned members of the department insights into the Knowledge Management program and, maybe, teach them a thing or two.

The organization-wide on-boarding gives new employees a good overview of the entire organization, its policies and procedures. However, a local, more department or project focused on-boarding/training will help new team members feel more comfortable and help them feel more proactive faster.

Contact me if you want more information or sample documents

-A version of this article was first published at Roche and Genentech-