🧠 MeisterNote of the Month: Company Handbook

Hello, MeisterNote Community! 👋

When someone mentions a company handbook, what do you think of? Probably a long, boring document detailing policies, procedures and plans. In this post, with the help of examples from @Cornelia Patscheider's template, we're going to turn that around: I'm going to show you how you can create a company handbook in MeisterNote to inspire rather than despair.

Why Should You Have a Company Handbook?

A company handbook is an incredibly valuable resource for your team because it allows you to:

🗣️ Clearly communicate company policies, procedures, and expectations to your team.

➡️ Ensure consistent application of procedures across the company.

👏 Minimize confusion and misunderstandings among your team.

⚖️ Comply with legal and regulatory requirements related to workplace policies.

🌍 Provide a centralized and accessible source of information for employees, particularly for remote or distributed teams.

Why Do We Use MeisterNote for Our Company Handbook?

Accessibility

Our handbook can always be accessed by our very international team from anywhere in the world 🌍, provided we have an internet connection. This means important information is never more than a few clicks away, and we can find answers to pressing questions at any time, day or night.

The hierarchical structure of pages and sub-pages in MeisterNote also supports accessibility. In Cornelia's template, you can see the bigger themes of Our Company, Working Together, Perks, Onboarding and What's New? By expanding these pages, you see that this information is broken down into more manageable (and delightful) chunks:

Readability

There's no denying it - Company handbooks can get very long (and rather dull). Although they are formal documents containing information of the utmost importance, there's no reason why they shouldn't have a splash of color and a friendly face or two 😃. This also helps keep our team focused and engaged on the messages we really need to convey.

In her template, Cornelia has used a variety of content blocks to draw attention to important topics like expectations and principles. This makes critical information harder to overlook. Consequently, the team is better aligned because everybody reads what needs to be read.

Flexibility

Our company, like most, is constantly evolving. This renders a paper handbook useless. In MeisterNote, we regularly update and revise important information so all policies and procedures stay up-to-date.

This is especially important for "Company News" sections in handbooks. The bigger your company, the harder it is to stay in the loop: Something impressive can happen in Engineering without the Marketing team having any idea. Knowing what's going on across departments isn't only useful for small talk with your colleagues 😃 - It is crucial for alignment and company success.

Take a look at Cornelia's template. She's added an entire section devoted to news; it's clearly organized and easily navigable so there's no excuse for not knowing what's going on each month.

Searchability

Our MeisterNote search function is constantly under development because we really believe in first-class navigability. After all, we're storing all our documentation in MeisterNote, and we want to be able to find it!

Being able to find accurate information quickly saves us time and frustration - We can search a few key terms and have the answer at our fingertips almost instantly. Similarly, if a search term gets no results, it's clear that information is missing and needs adding to make our handbook even more complete.

Efficiency

The above advantages can all be summarized in one overarching benefit of using MeisterNote: Improved efficiency! With easy accessibility, high readability, plenty of flexibility and quick searchability, your team members will work more efficiently, undoubtedly 😆.

Studies have shown that only 60% of working time is spent productively, leaving a huge 40% of time wasted. Increased efficiency helps change these figures in our/your company's favor. I hope this post has convinced you that you, too, can take easy steps to build your company handbook in MeisterNote and improve overall efficiency.

As always, let me know what you think below!

Miša