Clarity in Your Company
Every work produces information, that may be crucial, supportive or absolutely useless. Your internal working documents aka internal documentation makes sure that the right kind of information lives within a company. You store, distribute and archive pro-actively to make sure your company’s goals and your employee’s efforts are aligned.
Create these documents with intention and, internal working documents can be your most powerful tool for guiding focus, making understanding easier, and facilitating recall. In other words, they don’t just serve the company—they serve your employees at every stage of their journey, from onboarding to offboarding. Leading to the growth you envisioned for your company.
The Purpose of Internal Working Documents
Internal documents are more than just rules. They’re guides that help employees stay focused, avoid mistakes, and work towards company goals. When designed well, they’re helpful tools, not barriers.
Why do internal working documents matter so much? Let’s break it down into three core functions:
Guiding Focus
Clear documentation directs attention where it needs to be. Instead of guessing what comes next, employees know exactly what to do and how to do it.
Easing Understanding
New information is easier to absorb when it’s presented in an organized, accessible way. Documents that explain processes step by step reduce the mental load, leaving employees with more room to innovate and grow.
Facilitating Recall
No one remembers everything. That’s why great documents serve as ongoing references, helping employees recall key information when they need it most—whether it’s months after onboarding or in the middle of a complex project.
TIP
To help employees succeed, talk to them directly. Ask about their experiences and what information they need. Use this feedback to create helpful internal documents.
The Documents They Need on Day One
To create clarity, your onboarding documents should guide your new hires step by step. Some essential documents that should always be available include:
New Employee Handbook
This document outlines everything from company culture to daily expectations. The key here is clarity and accessibility. A well-structured handbook helps employees quickly understand what’s expected of them.
Role-Specific Training Guides
No two roles are the same. Tailored onboarding documents for each role should include a clear description of responsibilities, a breakdown of the systems they’ll need to use, and perhaps most importantly, a list of people they can turn to for help. These guides should be dynamic, updated regularly to reflect any changes in processes or tools.
30, 60, 90-Day Plans
When new hires understand what’s expected of them in the first few months, they can focus on what’s most important. These plans should lay out goals and milestones at each stage, helping them prioritize their time and energy without feeling lost or overwhelmed.
The Gaps You Might Be Missing
Missing the Big Picture
Many companies forget to explain why things are done the way they are. This can leave new employees feeling confused. It’s important to not just tell people how to do things, but also why it’s important. This helps them understand how their work fits into the company’s goals.
Ask Your Team
Talk to your current employees. Ask them if they ever felt lost during their onboarding. Were there things they had to ask about that weren’t written down? This feedback can help you fill in the gaps and make your onboarding materials even better.
Development: Empowering Growth Through Internal Documentation
Development Stage: Growing Through Clarity
As your employees move beyond onboarding, they enter the development phase—one of growth, learning, and refinement of skills. This is where process, project, and technical documentation come into play. These documents help employees navigate their roles as they take on more responsibilities and grow with the company.
Process Documentation
- Clearly outlines steps for recurring tasks.
- Ensures consistency and efficiency.
Technical Documentation
- Provides instructions for using technology and troubleshooting problems.
- Empowers employees to solve issues independently and avoid delays.
Project Documentation
- Keeps teams aligned on project scope, timelines, and deliverables.
- Prevents confusion and ensures everyone knows their role.
Checklist – Communication Guidelines Checklist for Employees
Guiding Documents
To guide development, your internal documents should do more than list available training programs and technical support. They should map out the employee’s growth journey in detail. Key documents here include:
Learning and Development Paths
Performance Review Templates
Effective performance reviews are driven by clear metrics. These templates should make it easy for managers and employees to discuss both successes and areas for improvement. They help employees reflect on their progress and identify specific areas to focus on in the future.
However, the best time for a promotion depends on the individual’s performance, the company’s needs, and the specific role. It’s important to have open and honest conversations with your manager about your career goals and expectations.
Engagement: Staying Connected and Aligned
The more engaged your employees are, the better they will work. Engagement is about keeping employees informed and connected. Clear company documents can help with this.
Documents That Keep Everyone Aligned
To maintain engagement, your documents should address both day-to-day communication and long-term alignment with company goals. Some important documents here include:
Communication Guidelines
Company Vision and Goals
Where You Might Be Losing Engagement
After you ask employees for feedback, it’s important to tell them what you’ll do with their answers. If you don’t, employees might feel like their opinions don’t matter and they will be less engaged. Always follow up and show employees that you value their feedback.
Offboarding: Ending on a Clear Note
When an employee leaves the company, it’s important to have a clear process for them to follow. This helps ensure that everything is done correctly and that the employee leaves on good terms.
Documents That Ensure a Smooth Transition
A clear offboarding process should include:
Offboarding Checklist
Exit Interview Template
Knowledge Transfer Guide
The Importance of Respecting the Exit Process
Offboarding is important, but it’s often overlooked. A good offboarding process helps everyone involved, both the employee and the company. It shows the employee that their work has been appreciated, even as they move on to new opportunities.
Managing Internal Working Documents
Now comes the simple yet explorative part of the process. Internet is filled with tools that will help you in generation of these documents. Even Word will do most of the above tasks. When it comes to storing and managing these documents as well as being compliant with laws, you will require a reliable Document Management System that can help you with the store, secure and access according to regulations.
Docupile functions like a search engine for your documents. Its full-text search scans both file names and content, enabling users to quickly find documents using keywords or phrases. This feature significantly reduces the time spent manually searching for files, improving productivity.
Docupile prioritizes security, with encryption protocols that protect data at rest and in transit. Role-based access control ensures only authorized users can access, edit, or delete specific documents, helping organizations maintain compliance with industry regulations like SOC-2 and HIPAA.
Docupile’s AI automatically sorts and categorizes documents upon upload, reducing the need for manual organization. The system learns and adapts to your unique document patterns, improving efficiency over time and ensuring files are neatly stored for easy retrieval.
Explore what Docupile can do for you, by either trying it yourself or giving us a chance to demonstrate it for you.
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