Your team’s unique culture is hurting productivity

A few years ago, when I started a new job, I felt overwhelmed.

I had to integrate into a new culture, and with that came indecipherable acronyms and shorthand in every meeting and every Slack channel. I had questions, and then more questions before I could ask them. I wasted much of my first month just wading through Google Docs for company-specific information and scratching my head. Even as the months passed, I still longed for a definitive source of truth when it came to team knowledge.

I wasn’t alone. Research has shown that it takes new hires from 1–2 years to start adding value to a company, which is particularly problematic in an age in which young employees are moving jobs more frequently than ever before. This is one reason experts argue that onboarding time is crucial. Investing in employees pays out: organizations that offer even basic training have a revenue-to-employee ratio 4x higher than those without. But what if we could we could make onboarding more efficient?

There’s definitely a better way. During my career so far, I have been fortunate to spend some time working with some pretty incredible teams. I have witnessed first-hand the benefits of high-performing teams at Google, Pixar, and Girls Who Code. What they all have in common is a shared knowledge base.

These teams work smart. And smarter teams mean better results, greater retention, and happier customers.

I created Wonderus because I want to help all teams use internal knowledge more effectively. And I’m excited to announce that Wonderus is available for free. Sign up for free now, and scroll on to see how Wonderus can help your team.

Wonderus Use Cases

Wonderus is for great for times when team members coin their own lingo, leaving others scratching their heads:

Share knowledge: Your team can store all of its knowledge as cards. With a fast and functional card editor, it’s easy to organize information and create connections between cards.

Create an acronym decoder: Because everything has a nickname, you can add common shorthand (acronyms, jargon, lingo) to any card. So whatever lingo is used, others can understand. AARM? Wonderus can decode that.

Make Slack your home for knowledge: If your team members are currently using Slack, you can give them all access to Wonderus with a single click. Use the /wonder command to find anything in your knowledge base or ask the team for help.

 

Get the info you need right where you need it.

Manage team questions: If a team member can’t find the information they need in Wonderus, they can ask the team for help. All questions can be linked directly to knowledge cards, so you don’t end up answering the same question again and again. Questions like:

 

Your team can ask questions about specific cards in Wonderus and on Slack.

The Wonderus Slackbot will then automatically notify a team member when their question has been answered.