Download 12 free handover document templates and learn how to write them effectively. Ensure seamless transfer of responsibilities with our handover document template guide.
Shreelekha Singh August 29, 2024
You’re transferring a project from one manager to another. Or maybe you’re welcoming a new employee to the team. How do you ensure the shift from before to after happens seamlessly?
Simple — with a well-structured handover document template.
A handover document is a written record of daily tasks, details of ongoing projects, work schedules, deadlines, upcoming events and other crucial work information. This is an integral part of any knowledge management strategy that supports consistent and effective processes.
It's a comprehensive report of responsibilities that project managers use to transfer to incoming employees or teams.
Are you wondering which handover documents are important for your team? This list of handover document templates will cover all bases for you.
Jump to a template:
Handover documents are written reports created by project managers, or employees leaving a company or changing their role.
They're a form of visual communication that documents the project team's:
Creating a transition plan ensures that whoever takes over has all of the information they need to continue ongoing projects, understand various processes and keep the business moving forward.
Depending on the scope of the work, you might have different needs for your handoff document template.
Here are 12 handover templates you can try today!
A project handover plan is comprehensive, particularly when one or a group of employees hands over the project to another. To make sure the incoming team members understand the nitty-gritty of the project, this project handover template includes:
Create a checklist with key information, documents and tasks that need to be completed with this free project handover checklist template, ensuring a smooth project transition.
Use this project checklist template to outline the tasks, activities and milestones of the project lifecycle, setting your team up for a successful project handover.
Change management means exactly how it sounds: the process of managing your employees through all types of organizational change — be it a change in processes, tools, or leadership.
Change management handover documentation helps teams with change management activity. Use this template to build change management SOPs to maintain consistency including:
✨ Check out our list of the top free change management software to guarantee easy transitions for your entire organization.
A transition plan template is designed to help you support offboarding one individual and handing off their responsibilities to another.
The template facilitates a seamless handover by assigning clear responsibilities, ensuring everything is accounted for, and minimizing disruptions.
This template includes:
When an existing employee is leaving or you're onboarding a new employee, your knowledge transfer strategy plays a key role during personnel changes. One of the best ways to do this effectively is by using a well-structured knowledge handover plan or SOP template.
An employee offboarding template outlines the handover process and procedures for when an employee leaves a company.
This standardized guide supports leave management for when employees retire, resign or take extended leave.
The handover documentation will break down the company policies and procedures that the offboarding employee will need to follow, with a list of tasks they need to accomplish:
💡 Scribe tip: Create an employee offboarding checklist to manage employee departure consistently and securely.
A method of procedure (or MOP) template outlines process instructions in manufacturing, construction, and IT industries.
This template includes a(n):
A standard work template is best for assembly, production, safety, quality control and maintenance teams.
Still, while standard work is usually associated with manufacturing environments, it can also help office settings optimize their workflows to enhance performance.
This template includes a(n):
This construction site work instruction template provides clear and detailed step-by-step procedures and instructions for construction project tasks, making handovers easy and seamless.
Use this template to improve your construction project procedures and:
According to 86 percent of customers, good customer service can convert a one-time client into a long-term customer. A sales-to-customer-success-handoff template ensures a smooth handover, delivering a frictionless customer experience and maximizing satisfaction from the start.
This template covers the basic details of the:
Use this sales-to-service handoff template to better coordinate your client acquisition and servicing teams.
Runbook templates are essential for IT professionals who manage complex computer systems and applications.
Use this runbook template to create handover documentation outlining:
Try from 100+ free process documentation templates in the Scribe template gallery.
Use these templates to:
. all for half the time in effort.
When employees leave for a period of time or entirely, their knowledge of the role and responsibilities goes with them. Without effective employee leave management, you'll inevitably run into confusion, inefficiency and reduced productivity.
71 percent of organizations without an effective employee offboarding and handover process face such consequences.
Effective handover documentation along with solid knowledge management strategies can help you save explicit knowledge as well as tribal knowledge — the unspoken wisdom of how your company runs.
The proper project handover documents can help you onboard new employees without friction and maintain project continuity. Here are five essential elements to keep in mind when creating a work handover template.
A brief description of the project, task, or role being handed over, including its purpose, objectives, and key deliverables.
Mention the details of the day-to-day tasks that an employee takes up. Make sure these duties are explained in detail, including:
When written well, project handover documents will allow new employees to start following their duties without any struggles or confusion.
Project/task status updates are among the most vital information an incoming employee must have. Include these two elements:
List of ongoing tasks
Provide an update on the current status of the project, task, or role, including any outstanding tasks, deadlines, risks, and issues.
Along with each ongoing task title, the leaving employee must include details like the progress report, research conducted and results. Key success factors and main procedures related to the ongoing tasks are also crucial.
If this feels like too much work—which it can be, use a time-saving document builder like Scribe.
Scribe captures your screen while you go through your task, building a visual guide, complete with text, links and annotated screenshots.
You can easily update steps to cater to each new hire and process.
Upcoming deadlines
The new employees or project managers should be aware of the upcoming deadlines for every project. Record all project timelines systematically using the handover document format below to avoid errors.
Create a visual flow of the timelines to simplify tracking all the start and finish dates. You can also color code these timelines for every team or milestone, like in this example.
Developing a proper set of training and guidance for the new employee(s) will help them understand the responsibilities at a deeper level. Provide them with a list of relevant resources and documentation, such as files, reports and guidelines.
Outgoing employees can also document their approach and what they’ve achieved so far to help their successors.
🔥 Scribe top tip: Create step-by-step guides for newcomers on any task or process with Scribe. Use the screenshot Chrome extension to auto-generate how-to guides in seconds.
Every individual associated with a role or a project holds immense value for the completion of the project.
Include a list of key contacts and stakeholders involved in the project, task, or role, with their contact information. Make sure you mention the delivery channels for accountability and a smooth flow of information.
Add all the team members' contact information and their positions in the handover documentation.
Although the exact format of your handover document depends upon whether your employee is leaving a role or transferring a project, here’s a step-by-step guide for building your own handover reports from scratch.
Before creating handover documentation, develop an action plan so you don't miss out on any critical details. Talk to your project manager about the ongoing projects.
You don’t want to leave any loose ends and ensure every task is delegated. Use these question prompts to make a foolproof action plan:
While creating a detailed plan:
Involve all key stakeholders in a handover meeting to discuss these elements. This will help keep everyone on the same page when the knowledge handover occurs.
Identify key stakeholders for every task to ensure you don't miss out on handing over the duties to all the personnel responsible. List the people currently handling a particular role and those handling it once the project is transferred.
Handover documents should have specific timelines and important milestones, like due dates, meetings and other forms of communication.
This is important for ensuring that nothing goes off course and the project moves forward as it would have.
Use a project management tool like Notion, ClickUp or Asana to track and assign project deadlines and even automate handoffs.
Make sure that you add additional context and concerns in your handover documentation. This can include any potential roadblocks like:
Add your inputs in the comments section and suggestions on how employees can handle the situation.
Now that you've documented what to do and when, it's time to show how.
Create how-to guides for any process the employee goes through. This should include:
Use a documentation app like Scribe to quickly generate visual guides you can link or embed in your handover documentation.
You can share your guides in seconds:
Once you have prepared all the handover documents, manuals and SOPs, it’s time to transfer the ownership of these resources.
Send a list of accounts and credentials for login. You can also transfer the accessibility for app accounts, guides and documentation via Google Drive and Jira.
By documenting everything needed in the handover, you can confirm that your departing employee won't keep access to vital logins or information.
Make sure to use a standard format and knowledge base with clearance permissions to maintain your document security.
✨ Scribe tip: Use a knowledge-base Chrome extension to cut the time you need to build your knowledge base.
Transferring a project or a role comes with inevitable challenges like knowledge loss, communication gaps, problems in tracking changes and insufficient information, among others. In such scenarios, employees will take longer than usual to get started.
That's where work handover documents come in. They're critical for every organization to ensure a smooth handover process for knowledge, documentation and responsibilities.
A work handover template is a life-saver for every project manager looking to transfer tasks or onboard employees. Use this set of handover document templates to create effective handover documentation.
