How to create an employee onboarding guide in Confluence
Share on socials
How to create an employee onboarding guide in Confluence
Daniel Domene Martinez
13 August 2024
4 min read
Daniel Domene Martinez
13 August 2024
4 min read
Jump to Section
Jump to section
What is an onboarding guide?
Why is an onboarding guide important?
How to create an onboarding manual in Confluence
The right start can make all the difference to your new hires. Here’s how to create an employee onboarding manual in Confluence Cloud.
Are you looking to onboard new team members efficiently and consistently? Onboarding guides are the perfect way to create tailored yet consistent interactive guides, helping your new hires get up to speed quickly.
If you're already using Confluence, it's the ideal hub for all your onboarding documents, and it’s easier than you might think to create a manual from them!
What is an onboarding guide?
An onboarding manual is a comprehensive guide designed to help new employees understand your company's culture, policies, procedures, and specific roles and responsibilities. It serves as a roadmap for new hires, guiding them through their first days, weeks, and months at the company.
Why is an onboarding guide important?
An onboarding manual can make the difference between a happy new hire and one who feels lost and confused. Here are four key reasons why onboarding manuals matter:
- Create a smooth transition: Help new employees acclimate to their new environment quickly and efficiently.
- Provide consistency: Ensure all new hires receive the same information and training, promoting consistency across the organisation.
- Boost engagement: Engage new hires from day one, making them feel welcomed and valued.
- Improve productivity: Provide the necessary tools and knowledge to help new employees become productive team members faster.
How to create an employee onboarding manual in Confluence Cloud
Step 1: Plan your manual
Before you start creating your onboarding manual, it’s important to plan your manual first! It’ll help you understand how each page will connect, and save you time in the long run.
- Define your audience: By defining your manual’s audience, you can tailor the content to address your new hires’ specific needs and expectations.
- Plan the structure: Organise your onboarding guide by structuring it to cater to different stages of the onboarding process, and think about which steps should link together. Begin with the basics and gradually introduce more detailed information to create a smooth and logical progression for new hires.
Here’s an example structure for an onboarding manual:
Step 2: Create your pages in Confluence
Now you've done some planning, you need to create pages for each step of your manual.
- Navigate to the space where you want to house your onboarding pages. You can use an existing space or create a new Confluence space just for this guide.
- In the Confluence header, click + Create and then click Page.
- Create the first page of your manual, then click Publish when it's ready.
- Create a new page for every step of your onboarding manual.
Here’s an example page that we created using Content Formatting Macros:
Step 3: Use Guided Pathways to pull it all together
It's time to create your multi-step onboarding manual using Guided Pathways for Confluence. Guided Pathways lets you pull together pages into a branching onboarding guide with multiple outcomes.
2. Find the Confluence space containing your pages created earlier, and select Apps > Guided Pathways to go to the app homepage.
3. Click Create a Guide.
4. Enter your onboarding manual's title, category, and description, then click Create.
5. Create your first step.
6. Enter a step name in Step Title.
7. Link to your first onboarding Confluence page by clicking Link a Confluence Page.
8. Press + > in the left sidebar to create a new child page (this links the pages together).
9. Give your child page a name in Step Title, choose what will show on the previous page's button in Button Text and link to the Confluence page associated with the next step in your guide.
Follow the steps with our interactive tutorial below:
10. Repeat this for all the pages in your onboarding manual, adding extra child steps to create a new branching choice. Here's how it could look:
11. When finished, click Publish in the top-right corner to make your guide available to other users.
Don’t forget to share your new manual! You can copy the URL of your guide and link to it in your Confluence pages, making it easy for employees to find and navigate.
Written by
Daniel Domene Martinez
Technical Product Marketing Manager
With over a decade of digital marketing expertise, Daniel is the Product Marketing Manager for Kolekti's latest Confluence app, Guided Pathways. He excels at taking products to market, capturing customer feedback, and transforming them into actionable insights for product enhancements.
LinkedIn →
LinkedIn →