What to do this week

Three to five concrete actions you can take before your hire’s first day. None of these need an AI tool — they unblock the work the skills will do later.

1. Decide on the runtime. Pick Claude Desktop, OpenAI Codex, or Microsoft 365 Copilot Agent Builder for the new hire to standardize on. Copilot has the deepest native Office integration if Crown is already on Microsoft 365 — output lands directly in the open Word/Excel/PowerPoint file. Make the call before day one so the skills load into one place.
2. Gather the inputs the skills need. Pull together Crown's voice guide (or sketch one in a page if it doesn't exist yet), the existing content library, branded sales sheet and PowerPoint templates, and any approved proof points for ISTA APASS, equipment stocking, and the branch network. Put them in a single SharePoint folder the new hire can attach as persistent knowledge across every skill.
3. Brief the training staff and the lab team. The training-module-outline skill and the ISTA APASS proof kit both depend on collaboration with Crown's training staff and lab team. Give them a heads-up that a new specialist will be drafting content and they'll be reviewing for pedagogical sequencing and technical accuracy — not authoring from scratch.
4. Set the day-one calendar. Block the new hire's first week with three things: a Memphis lab tour, a sit-in on at least one supplier collaboration session, and a 30-minute meeting with each branch sales lead (Memphis, Boise, Chicago at minimum). Those three inputs feed every skill in the Playbook.
5. Schedule the Monday competitive brief. Set up the competitive-watch skill to run Sunday night so the brief is in your inbox before Monday standup. This one runs without the new hire — it's intel that's worth having even before the role is filled.