3 benefits of an online internal knowledge base

Pete Grigg | April 29, 2014

Every company has information that employees need to access: employee contact lists, benefits information, employee handbooks, rules and guidelines, etc. Documents like these can be vital to the productivity and success of the workforce. However, if the information is hard to get to or badly organized, it can actually cost you productivity and time instead of saving it.

You Have the Information; Get it into Your Employees’ Hands

Information is only as good as its accessibility and accuracy. If your documentation is hard to access, chances are people won’t use it. At SurveyGizmo (my previous company) we used to utilize a shared company drive for all of our employee information and I can’t tell you how many times a frustrated employee had trouble logging into the drive or finding the info they were looking for once they got in. Usually they would just end up bypassing the process altogether and go straight to our HR department. This costs both the employee and the HR rep time which could have been spent elsewhere. This is also what lead me to write about 3 benefits of moving your internal documentation to knowledge base software.

1. Ease of Access

Chances are pretty good that your employees are familiar with using the internet. That said, how great would it be to be able to just email out a single link that would take them to every piece of documentation and reference that your company has? By using knowledge base software like KnowledgeOwl, you can do just that and also still maintain the security your information requires. All they have to do is bookmark that page and everything they need will be one click away.

2. Up-to-Date Information

Companies and policies change and when that happens updating all of the pertinent documentation can be a pain. Trying to find where you saved that word document about drinking fountain etiquette from two years ago can be a challenge. Not to mention that you now have to worry about all of the different versions that your employees have saved somewhere and are referencing are accurate. By moving all of these files into one easy to manage internal knowledge base, you can quickly make the updates. You can also ensure that the very next time an employee reads that documentation it will be up-to-date and accurate.

3. Take the Knowledge Out of One Person’s Head (or Computer) and Put it Somewhere Anyone Can Use It

People move, change careers, or just flat don’t work out for their position. When this happens, you don’t want to realize too late that half of your company’s policy information is buried somewhere deep in their local file system under some obscure name. Remove that possibility by using an online internal knowledge base solution. Once the information has been stored online, transitioning from one person to the next can be as simple as adding a new user to the software. This also allows you to have multiple people managing your information at the same time and can be great for collaboration.

Most companies want to save time and money. An online internal knowledge base can do just that by making it easy to share information with customers and employees. So what’s stopping you from creating your online knowledge base today?

{{snippet.PeteGrigg}}

{{snippet.Disqus}}