Onboarding someone new

You'll finish with: A new starter productive on day one.

The quiet payoff. Most of what a new starter needs to learn in their first month is written down in that project already.

What they get on day one

Week one, two ways

Without
New starter drafts a client email
Sounds like a different company. You rewrite it. Twice a day, for a month.
With the project
New starter drafts a client email
Sounds like you. You correct the substance, not the tone.

It doesn't replace training. It removes the part that's just "how we say things here", so your time goes on judgement instead of tone.

Do this now
  1. Add a short "how we work here" file aimed at someone brand new.
  2. Include the three things you explain to every new person.
  3. Next starter, give them the project on day one and see what they still ask.
  4. Whatever they ask — add it. That's how the project improves.
How to know it worked

A new starter produces something sendable in week one without you rewriting the tone.

No new starter due? You don't have to wait. Read your own "how we work here" file as though you'd never seen the business, and write down every question it leaves you with. Those gaps are the same ones a real new starter will hit.

If you find yourself explaining the same thing to them in week two that the file was supposed to cover, the file describes what you do rather than how you decide. Add the judgement call, not the process step — "we quote fit-outs after a site visit, never over the phone" beats "follow the quoting procedure".

That's the course

One shared context, one voice, one owner — and new people productive faster because it's all written down.

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