Startup leads change in employee handbook communication

A new startup assists businesses to create collaborative company handbooks that better reflect the company ethos.

Starting a new job can be daunting. It takes time for new employees to familiarize themselves with a new team ethos and the protocols that go with it. Helping a new member of the team get up to speed quickly is key to making new employees productive. Springwise recently wrote about a startup platform that streamlines the process of new staff joining, providing them with company logins, training and advice from other team members. Now, offering a different solution is Tehabo, which provides companies with a way of creating and maintaining an online company ‘handbook’ for new starters.

An employee handbook contains a company’s ethos, policy, procedures, values, and culture. Tehabo allows companies to create a new kind of handbook: everyone in the company can view, edit and contribute to one central version. Comic books, videos, humorous illustrations and light copy that avoids company jargon can all form part of the creative process encouraged by Tehabo. Furthermore, Tehabo believes that the very fact that Tehabo handbooks are open to communal edit has a positive impact on the company ethos unlike a fixed top-down handbook which can reinforce a hierarchical company structure and culture.

Effective communication and engagement are two key facets of any team. Sharing the task of clarifying procedures should lead to greater transparency and buy-in. What’s more, because Tehabo is open to constant updates, it can easily accommodate the introduction of new protocols and the phasing out of others. We’ve seen big corporations restructure their offices to borrow the collaborative spirit engendered by co-working spaces. What other simple changes in the work environment or processes could bring new ways of thinking to your office?