A few years ago, a global shipping logistics company on the West Coast approached me about refreshing their newhire manual.
They felt that the manual “no longer communicated the right image of their company.”
Could I help?
HOW I MADE THEIR NEWHIRE MANUAL LOOK MORE CONTEMPORARY — WITH 1 SIMPLE CHANGE
I’ve written lots of newhire manuals for companies all over the globe — including EDS, IBM, Sprint, Applebee’s, and more. I’ve been a technical writer for 21 years.
But I was surprised by this newhire manual: the content actually looked very good. (And I see a LOT of bad manuals.)
It was clean and well-organized. It was easy to read, with the right amount of subheaders, whitespace, and visuals.
I honestly wasn’t sure I could improve it. So I slept on it that night.
The next morning I woke up and changed one major thing: