Simplify onboarding with a public page new hires open before day one

Why the usual fixes stop working

The welcome email is written once and forwarded forever. By the fourth hire two of its links point at a tool the company no longer uses, and nobody notices because nobody re-reads an email they sent. The onboarding page in the wiki is better kept, but it sits behind the company login, which the new person gets at 9:30 on day one, usually after they needed it. The HR tool has a checklist, and the checklist needs the same login.

The common fault is that the first useful page is behind the first barrier. The fix is a page that needs nothing: no account, no install, no attachment to open, and that you can correct in one place when a link moves. A read-only web page that you update in place does that, and the new hire can carry it on their phone from the offer email to the end of their first week.

The setup: one welcome board, published as a page

ReadyTab is a new tab extension for Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Brave. You build the page as a board in your own browser, then publish it as a public board: a read-only web page behind one link, which anyone can open without the extension. Publishing needs the Full plan, CHF 25 a year, for the one person who owns the page. The new hire pays nothing and installs nothing. Budget an hour for the first version, and ten minutes before each new start date.

1. Build the welcome board. Install ReadyTab from the Chrome Web Store or Firefox Add-ons and create a workspace called New here. Four groups are enough: Before day one for the things that work without a company login (the office address and how to get in, the public handbook, the team page, the benefits overview); Your tools for the chat, the tracker, the calendar and the drive, which will work once the account exists; People to meet for the manager, the buddy and the IT contact; and Read this week for the five documents everyone is expected to have read by Friday. Keep it to about twenty links. More than that and it is a wiki, and they will have a wiki.
2. Put the steps in order. Add a step list at the top of the board with three short sections: before day one (sign the forms, choose a laptop, read the handbook summary), day one (be at reception at 9:00, the welcome call at 9:30, pick up the badge), and the first week (one item per day). A numbered list on the page beats a paragraph in an email because the new hire can see where they are.
3. Add the people and the documents. Add a profile card for each of the three people they will meet first, with a one-line note on what to ask them, and a callout with the one thing to do before anything else. Then add file cards for the handbook and the org chart, pointing at the documents where they already live, and a link card for the team page. These are all content blocks you drop onto the board next to the groups; images and avatars are referenced by URL, so nothing is uploaded.
4. Keep it public-safe. The page will be behind one link, and a link gets forwarded. Nothing on it should be a secret: no passwords, no internal phone list, no salary portal, no door code. Quick-copy clipboard items are left out of the public copy unless you tick the box to include them, and launcher buttons are stripped, so a board you also use yourself publishes clean. If a link only works with the company login, say so in its description and put it in Your tools, not in Before day one.
5. Publish it as a public board. Open Settings → Account and paste your license key, then Settings → Spaces → Sharing → Public links and choose New public link. Pick the New here workspace, give it a title such as Welcome to Acme and a one-line description, and set the link to never expire, otherwise it stops working after 30 days. ReadyTab encrypts the board in your browser before it is uploaded; the key to read it is part of the link, so the server holds only something it cannot open.
6. Send the link with the offer. Paste it into the email that goes out when the contract is signed, under one sentence: “Everything for your first week is on this page; start with the steps at the top.” It opens in any browser, including on a phone, and the new hire can read it on the train in on day one.
7. Update it in place. When a tool moves or the welcome call shifts to 10:00, edit the workspace and choose Update snapshot in the same Public links screen. The link does not change, so the hire who starts next month and the one who started last month both see the current version, and the forwarded welcome email stays right.
8. Hand over to the team board on day one. Once the new hire has their accounts and has installed the extension, give them the team board token so the same tools sit in every new tab from then on. The team start page guide covers that board, and the two can be the same workspace published twice: once as the public welcome page and once as the live team board.

What changes for the team

• The new hire arrives knowing where things are. They have read the handbook summary, they know who their buddy is and they have the first week in front of them. On day one they ask about the work instead of asking where the calendar is.
• Onboarding is kept in one place by whoever notices. A dead link or a moved meeting is fixed on the board once, and every past and future hire sees the fix. There is no email to resend and no wiki page to chase.
• It works for the people the login does not cover yet. Contractors on their first day, interns, the person starting Monday whose account is created Monday: the page needs nothing from IT to be useful, and it costs the same for one hire a year or one a week.

What this does not do

It is not an HR system. The page does not know who has opened it, does not collect forms or signatures and does not tick anything off. If you need to know that the new hire has read the policy, that stays in the tool that tracks it; the board links to that tool.

It does not get anyone past a login. A link to the tracker still needs a tracker account. What the page does is tell the new hire where to go and in what order, and give them the parts that need no account at all. Account creation stays an IT job, and the IT admins page covers the company-wide start page that follows once the accounts exist.

Start from a template instead of a blank board

Two boards from the showcases are close to this layout. The Team hub board has six link groups and a New here? group to start from, and the Studio team board has a welcome step list and three callouts in the arrangement this guide describes. Download either board file, then go to Settings → Data → Import. Importing replaces the workspaces in that browser profile, so do it in a fresh profile or export your own boards first. Rename the groups, replace the example links with yours, and you are at step 5 in ten minutes.

Related

• ReadyTab for onboarding: the hub this guide belongs to, with the rollout, pricing and the questions people ask before sending the first link.
• A good starting point for your coworkers every morning: the live team board the new hire joins on day one, kept current by the people who know the links.
• A company start page in Chrome without Group Policy: the IT version, one read-only board for every browser in the company.
• How teams use ReadyTab: share codes, public boards and live boards side by side.
• Pricing: one owner on Full, everyone else free.
• Public boards in the docs: the publish dialog, expiry, updating the snapshot and what is stripped from the public copy.

Frequently asked questions

Does the new hire need to install anything to see the page?

No. A public board is a normal web page behind one link. It opens in any browser, including on a phone, without the extension and without an account. Only the person who publishes it needs ReadyTab.

Is the page visible to the whole internet?

Anyone who has the full link can open it, and nobody else. The board is encrypted in your browser before it is uploaded and the key to read it lives in the link itself, so the server cannot show it to anyone. Treat the link like a password and keep anything confidential off the page.

Can I change the page after I have sent the link?

Yes. Edit the workspace and choose Update snapshot in Settings → Spaces → Sharing → Public links. The link does not change, so everyone who opens it from now on sees the new version.

What does it cost?

Publishing needs the Full plan, CHF 25 a year or CHF 52.99 once, for the one person who owns the page. Everyone who opens it pays nothing and installs nothing.

Can the page hold the handbook and other documents?

It links to them. A file card opens a document where it already lives, and an image block shows an image by its URL. ReadyTab does not host or upload your files, so anything behind a company login still needs the login.