Filed under: Intranets
Staff directories are at their most effective when they contain a full list of people in the organisation. The realities of today’s complex organisations may mean this is not the case by default, and some extra effort may be required to extend the reach of the staff directory.
Include all staff
One of the common limitations of staff directories is that they only include staff who are managed in HR systems, or assigned a ‘payroll number’.
Staff who don’t have a phone number (such as field workers) are sometimes also excluded from the staff directory. This often means that only permanent staff located within offices are included in the staff directory.
In many organisations, however, there is a wide range of other staff who may be working with the organisation on a long-term basis, but are not employed as full-time staff. These include:
- contractors
- consultants from vendors
- field workers without an assigned desk
- staff employed by subsidiary or affiliated organisations
In the increasingly fluid nature of most businesses, these limitations can mean that as many as half of people considered ‘staff’ are not included in the directory. This greatly reduces the effectiveness of the staff directory, and destroys trust in the accuracy and completeness of the information.
[CM Briefing 2008-18, read the full article]