Onboard New Employees 10x Faster with AI-Powered Company Search

New employee starts Monday. You hand them:

• 15 PDFs of company policies
• Links to 10 Google Docs
• Access to Notion with 200+ pages
• A Slack channel full of tribal knowledge
• "Good luck! Ask questions if you need anything!"

Week 1: They interrupt the team 30+ times with questions that are definitely documented somewhere.

Week 2: They've given up asking and are just guessing how things work.

Week 4: They still don't really know where to find information.

Onboarding is broken. Not because the materials don't exist—because finding answers in a pile of documentation is impossible.

Stash fixes this. Give new hires AI-powered search across all company materials. They find answers themselves in seconds instead of interrupting people for hours.

The Onboarding Documentation Problem

Most companies have tons of great onboarding materials:

• Company handbook and policies
• Process documentation
• Technical setup guides
• Project histories and decisions
• Statements of work and client examples
• Team norms and culture docs
• Architecture and code documentation

The problem: It's scattered across Google Drive, Notion, Confluence, wikis, Slack, and people's heads.

What happens:

• New hire can't find the info they need
• They interrupt teammates constantly
• Or worse, they make incorrect assumptions
• Ramp time is 2-3x longer than it should be
• Team productivity drops while onboarding

Everyone loses. The new hire feels dumb. The team gets interrupted. Knowledge doesn't actually transfer.

How Stash Creates an Instant Knowledge Base

Here's the setup:

1. Import All Company Materials

One-time effort: Gather everything into Stash:

• HR policies and handbook
• Engineering documentation
• Product specs and roadmaps
• Client work examples
• Process guides (how we do X)
• Past decisions and why
• Tech stack documentation
• Meeting notes from key discussions

Dump it all into a "Company Knowledge Base" workspace.

2. New Hires Get Search Access

Instead of handing them 50 links, give them one link: Stash workspace.

Now they can ask questions in natural language:

"How do I submit expenses?" → Instantly finds the expense policy, approval process, and reimbursement timeline

"What's our process for code reviews?" → Pulls up engineering docs on PR guidelines, testing requirements, and approval workflows

"Why did we choose this tech stack?" → Surfaces the decision document and architectural reasoning

"How do we handle client onboarding?" → Shows client success playbook, templates, and past examples

3. They Learn Without Interrupting

Instead of:

"Hey Sarah, quick question: how do I..." "Hey John, sorry to bother you but..." "Anyone know where I can find..."

They just search and find the answer instantly.

Your team stays productive. New hire learns faster. Everyone wins.

Real Example: Engineering Onboarding

New software engineer joins your team. Day 1, they have questions:

Traditional onboarding:

Question: "How do I set up my development environment?"

What happens:

• Search Confluence → Too much outdated info
• Ask in Slack → Wait 30 min for response
• Get pointed to a doc → It's from 2 years ago
• Ask for clarification → Another 20 min wait
• Finally get it working → 3 hours wasted

With Stash onboarding:

New hire asks Stash: "How do I set up my development environment?"

Stash returns:

• Latest setup guide (updated last month)
• Common troubleshooting issues
• Links to required tools and credentials
• Video walkthrough if available
• Who to ask if truly stuck (escalation path)

Time to get answer: 30 seconds

Time to setup: 45 minutes instead of half a day

Multiply that across 50 onboarding questions, and you've saved days of ramp time.

Beyond Day 1: Ongoing Knowledge Access

This isn't just for the first week. New employees have questions for months:

Week 2:

• "What's our process for releases?"
• "How do we prioritize features?"
• "Who owns which parts of the codebase?"

Month 2:

• "Why did we make this architectural decision?"
• "What's our company's position on remote work?"
• "How do performance reviews work here?"

Month 3:

• "What's the history of this project?"
• "How do we handle customer escalations?"
• "Where are examples of past client proposals?"

With Stash: All of these are answered instantly by searching the knowledge base.

Without Stash: Each question is an interruption, a delay, or a gap in understanding.

Why This Works So Much Better

Self-service beats interruptions: New hires prefer finding answers themselves vs. feeling like they're bothering people.

Instant beats asynchronous: Search gets the answer in 10 seconds vs. waiting for someone to reply.

Complete beats scattered: One search across all sources vs. guessing which tool has the answer.

Accurate beats assumptions: Finding the actual doc beats guessing based on incomplete information.

Scalable beats manual: Works for 1 new hire or 10. No extra burden on the team.

Common Onboarding Questions Stash Handles

HR/Admin:

• Expense policies and approval
• Time off and holiday procedures
• Benefits enrollment and details
• Equipment requests and IT setup

Process/Workflow:

• How we run standups
• Code review and deployment process
• Client communication guidelines
• Project management workflows

Culture/Norms:

• Company values and mission
• Team communication expectations
• Meeting etiquette
• Decision-making frameworks

Technical:

• Development environment setup
• Architecture and tech stack decisions
• API documentation and examples
• Testing and deployment procedures

Historical:

• Why we chose vendor X
• Past project examples and learnings
• Evolution of product decisions
• Lessons from previous launches

The Time Savings Are Massive

Traditional onboarding:

• 20-30 questions per week (first month)
• Average 15 min per interruption (ask, wait, clarify)
• 5-7 hours of team time per week supporting new hire
• ~25 hours of team productivity lost in first month

Stash onboarding:

• Same 20-30 questions
• Self-serve answers in under 1 minute each
• Team only interrupted for complex/nuanced questions
• ~2-3 hours of team time per month

You just saved 20+ hours of team productivity per new hire.

If you hire 10 people per year? That's 200+ hours saved.

Getting Started

1. Gather all onboarding materials (docs, policies, guides, examples)
2. Import to a Company Knowledge Base workspace in Stash
3. Add new hire to workspace on their first day
4. Show them how to search (5 min demo)
5. Watch them ramp 3x faster than previous hires

Pro tip: Ask new hires to document questions Stash couldn't answer. That shows you what's missing from the knowledge base.

Over time, you build a comprehensive system that makes every new hire after them even faster.

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Stop slowing your team down with onboarding. Try Stash and give new hires self-service knowledge access.