Aiming for a cost saving staff directory that's as popular as Facebook
Welcome to Melcrum's Social media and Intranets Newsletter.
On almost every intranet, the staff directory is among the top three most used tools and applications. Often the directory is in the top two, and once in a while it's the absolute number one tool. But, while it's always a popular tool, the sophistication of a directory is not so universal: they can be very basic, very clever or anywhere in between and, if you talk to 10 intranet managers, you will get differing stories of success.
Now, with people increasingly familiar with using social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn, what should your ambitions be with your organization's staff directory?
The usual suspects
Basic information and functionality of a staff directory is obvious: Name, telephone numbers, email address, job title, location and a competent search tool to find people with. Information can often be pulled straight from existing systems – the payroll system, for example, which is useful because payroll is usually (hopefully) up to date. Additionally, there should a new starter's process that's sufficient for collecting information when an employee starts in a role.
Contextual information
Beyond the basic information, straightforward additions can help put further context around an employee. For example, a "Job responsibilities" field can add significantly more depth to the basic "Job title", while an employee's "Department" and "Team" info will be useful – particularly if the directory can dynamically formulate organizational charts and provide a fast visual representation of where an employee sits, who they work with and their reporting lines.
Skills and projects
The next common additions are of the "skills" "projects" and similar information. Kept up to date, this information can be invaluable, but the difficulty is in the manual updating, the closing off of projects (and whether to keep them on your profile, resumé style) and whether an individual wants to broadcast their skills, knowledge and experience to the whole company, for fear of being deluged with requests for assistance.
In practice, it's common to find many different levels of information volunteered. Some are keen to share as much as possible, while others less so. The key to a successful directory is to have a standardised level of information so users can trust the system to hold and deliver the results they expect. The higher that standard is (the more detailed and up-to-date the standard level of information is), and the more the information is interactive and interlinked, the more useful the staff directory will become.
Interests, networks...
Increasingly, and riding on the glittering coat tails of web-based social networks such as Facebook (with its quarter of a billion users), we're seeing the emergence of incredibly detailed and interactive staff directories that are actually delivering monetary savings and measurable business improvements for their organizations.
Sabre Town
In the new edition of Melcrum's Transforming your Intranet, research report, both Sabre and Sun Microsystems feature with their social networks, which have replaced the traditional directory.
Sabre's system, called Sabre Town, is "designed for adoption, which easily promotes connections between global project teams, people with similar jobs, even guitar enthusiasts. The employee profile is more unique, casual and friendly than your standard run of the mill employee directory listing. Profile information is volunteered by the user."
Has Sabre Town been successful? According to the case study, 65% of all Sabre employees became members within three months, and now the site boasts 90% active membership and participation. This has led to significant benefits in the company, including personal blogs and a highly-valued Q&A section, which has resulted in measured cost savings for the organization.
Sun's directory is typically advanced for the social media pace-setter, so much so that they've filed a patent on the system they created, which uncovers and measures the power of their internal networks, but I'll leave it to you to find out more in the report.
Alex Manchester
Senior Consultant
Step Two Designs
Website: www.steptwo.com.au
Blog: alexmanchester.com
Have your say
What is your company's corporate directory like? How much information is too much information? A network like Sabre Town can help with relationship building within the workplace, would it work in your company? What would the challenges be?
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