Most organisations that manage vehicles, whether that means a handful of company cars or an entire vehicle fleet, sooner or later face the same challenge: how do you make extensive information easy to find and use?
When it comes to vehicles, many employees need to know. Insurance, benefit taxation, mileage logs, damage handling and load securing are just a few examples. The information needs to be accurate and detailed enough, but also accessible enough that employees actually find it and take it in when they need it.
A long document risks feeling overwhelming. A summary that's too short, on the other hand, risks leaving out important information. Assemblin El has found a good balance. Their Vehicle Handbook brings together extensive information in a way that makes it easy to navigate, understand, and use day-to-day. That's why we've named it Guide of the Month.
Andreas Nilsson, Vehicle Manager at Assemblin El, says:
"We created the Vehicle Handbook to make everyday life easier for our employees with a company car. It gives clear answers to the most common questions and makes it easier for our employees to find answers themselves."
Assemblin El has around 1,000 service vehicles and 500 company cars in operation. The Vehicle Handbook is therefore designed to provide support in many situations, whether the car is used for work or for private use.
The handbook opens with a clear introduction to what it covers and who it's intended for. This is followed by sections on, among other things, division of responsibility, damage handling, electronic mileage logs, load securing, trailer driving and electric vehicles.
The structure makes it easy to find the right information without reading the whole handbook from start to finish. That's an important detail when the content is extensive: the user should be able to go straight to the information they need right now.
One of the handbook's strengths is how different types of content are used together. Short texts give a quick introduction, images show the actual vehicles, and video is used when something needs to be explained in more detail.
A good example is the section on the division of responsibilities between the employee and the employer. The text introduces the topic and helps the reader understand what the section is about. Anyone who wants to know more can then follow a visual walkthrough that explains what applies, step by step. This means the same content can work for both someone who just wants to quickly grasp the basics and someone who needs a more detailed explanation.
When a handbook needs to cover information such as damage reporting, insurance terms, windscreen damage and wildlife collisions, there's a risk that the sheer amount of information becomes hard to take in. Assemblin has addressed this by dividing the content into clear sections and supplementing it with questions and answers as well as summaries.
Those who wish to understand the subject in full can delve deeper into the content, whilst those who simply need an answer to a specific question can find the relevant section straight away. This means the handbook can be both comprehensive and accessible. The details are there when needed, without getting in the way of those who just want a quick answer.
The Vehicle Handbook doesn't just provide information about rules and responsibilities. It also helps employees carry out specific tasks. In the Fleet Web section, the system Assemblin uses to log work and private journeys, drivers get a visual walkthrough of how to use it. The guide shows where to log in and which fields to fill in. Rather than simply stating that a mileage log needs to be recorded, employees are supported all the way through to the actual registration.
The guide helps the user move from information to action.
The Vehicle Handbook is also part of Assemblin's onboarding and is used on an ongoing basis as day-to-day support. It's linked extensively from the intranet, making it easy for employees to find their way back to the information when they need it.
And usage seems to confirm the need. The Vehicle Handbook is the most-played of Assemblin's web guides.
Gunilla Andersson, Learning and Development Manager at Assemblin El, says:
“The Vehicle Handbook is part of our onboarding, and we also link to it extensively from our intranet. It's the most-played of our web guides, which shows just how great the need for information is in this area.”
That's perhaps the best praise a guide can get: not just that it's well made, but that it's actually used when employees need it. Well done, Assemblin, and congratulations on Guide of the Month!
Every month, we at InfoCaption select the Guide of the Month – a guide we want to highlight a little extra because of the value it brings to the organisation. As a thank you to the person or people who created the Guide of the Month, we donate 1,000 SEK every month to the organisation Hand in Hand Sweden, which combats poverty by creating more jobs in vulnerable countries. Hand in Hand operates on the ‘help to self-help’ model, which aligns with InfoCaption’s mission to make it easier for staff to help one another.