How Enterprise Search Improves Internal Communication
Updated April 3, 2023.
According to a report by Gallup, poor internal communication-induced productivity loss costs American companies a staggering $550 billion each year.
A well-defined internal communication strategy, however, keeps employees informed about upcoming events, changes in policy, and headcounts. For employees, this fosters an environment of transparency and openness. For an organization, it reduces the hours it takes to resolve simple issues, thus providing a long-term monetary benefit.
How to improve internal communication is, therefore, a key question in any organization’s overall strategy. Using the intranet—a private organizational network for internal communication—is vital. Intranet internal communication allows a company to centralize all communication with its employees.
Another thing that can help is enterprise search.
What is enterprise search?
In simple terms, it is a search engine—similar to Google—that exclusively answers queries based on an organization’s internal data. Enterprise search assists your organization by helping employees seek the information they need in any format, from anywhere within the company, including databases and document management systems. The best enterprise search software should enable employees to locate what they need quickly, streamlining their productivity and making internal communication easier.
✶ Learn what features you need in an enterprise search tool
Advantages of Enterprise Search for Internal Communication
With a streamlined internal communication process, an organization can ensure its employees won’t lose, ignore, or miss necessary information. Let’s look at how enterprise search can better internal communication.
Improved Efficiency
Employees can spend a lot of time looking for data and information. When they attempt to get these queries answered manually, they may have to approach several departments—a time-consuming and expensive process.
A study conducted by the International Data Corporation found, for example, that data professionals were losing up to 50% of their time every week—30% of which went into searching for and preparing data, and 20% of which went into duplicating work.
With an enterprise search engine that provides access to all kinds of data an employee needs to function, information sharing becomes much easier and more effective.
It can save employees a lot of time switching between several tools and applications to find the necessary information. At the same time, it saves employers time from processing everyday questions.
Improved Information Accessibility
An enterprise search offers employees quick and easy access to a rich knowledge base. This stored data can help an organization’s decision-makers streamline their work.
More advanced enterprise search engines can be a great tool to improve problem-solving, decision-making, and learning. They are essential to any organization looking to improve productivity, as they provide access to large data sets very quickly.
For example, an enterprise search could help an employee find details related to an old project when working on a project of their own; it could answer simple questions such as how many leave days an employee has left; and it could even help them find standard documents and templates that they can follow when presenting their findings.
With this much information at their fingertips, increased efficiency is bound to follow.
Improved Employee Onboarding
Internal communication is an integral part of an employee onboarding process for any organization. What better way to properly integrate new employees into company culture and provide them with all the tools they need to be productive team members than providing them easy access to all information about the company?
Onboarding has historically been a challenge for employers and employees across industries. A powerful enterprise search engine can help employees gain access to training sessions or answers to all their queries within minutes.
This also works exceptionally well with companies that offer remote working opportunities or follow a hybrid work model. With employees from different backgrounds getting access to the same information across an organization’s intranet, integrating within a company becomes a hassle-free process.
Unleashing the Full Potential of Internal Communication
One of the critical issues most organizations face when implementing an enterprise search engine tool is selecting one that doesn’t cover their business software effectively.
While we’ve gone through the benefits of enterprise search for internal communication, it’s also essential to note that a poorly functioning search engine will discourage employees from using internal systems. It takes just one bad experience with an intranet search to cause issues in internal communication.
To improve your organization’s search experience, consider implementing an enterprise search tool like Unleash. It's easy to use and searches every folder and application in detail, helping improve employee productivity.
Additionally, the tool guarantees that all your organization’s data is 100% encrypted and will never be sold or shared.
