What good is institutional knowledge if you can’t share it?
Modern business thrives on exchanging ideas and information, both internally and externally. When it comes to internal corporate communications, your team will inevitably ask questions like “Where can we find company policies?” or “How do we explore professional development?”
Constantly answering these one-off questions from colleagues impedes productivity and might mean you need to explore a long-term solution. When Comprise faced this challenge during a high-growth period, we solved it by developing our internal company wiki. Some companies may call this centralized information hub, a corporate wiki (like we do), an internal portal, an intranet or a knowledge base, but no matter the name, it achieves the same goal: keeping the whole team moving in the same direction with efficiency, consistency and growth in mind.
The Top 3 Corporate Wiki Benefits for Your Workplace
1. Enhanced Efficiency
Finding the information you’re looking for at work — and making sure it’s up to date — can be challenging or even downright confusing. The opportunity for error grows without a clearly defined resource for retrieving information about your company’s processes and policies. When teams have a reference informing them how to do assignments, that information significantly reduces repetitive questions that distract our focus from the task at hand.
Our internal wiki — developed by our web design and development team from scratch — is a single source of truth for our staff. With clearly defined processes and policies now easy to find on a well-organized and searchable platform, our internal wiki increases efficiency across our entire staff. When someone on the team is unsure of a particular aspect of our client management process, for example, several resources exist on the wiki to guide them to the correct way to handle their challenge.
From an administrative perspective, our corporate wiki is not a “one-and-done” project because processes are always evolving, so utilizing an internal wiki also makes updating policies and other documentation easier. Through the wiki, various stakeholders can quickly edit content in a single place and distribute it to the entire staff with the click of a button.
These benefits don’t stop internally, either. By equipping the team with clearly defined processes, we’ve empowered everyone on the team to put their best foot forward and maximize productivity in our client work from the first stages of the engagement.
2. Improved Consistency
Before implementing our internal wiki, finding the right (or current) design template or documentation consumed significant time and effort. As a result, our company-wide information appeared inconsistent.
Take branding as an example: The ability to present a unified image with easy-to-find, on-brand assets and utilize branded templates and documentation solidifies who we are with clients, prospects, current and future employees, and more.
Storing the most current assets in a corporate wiki helps give your employees a headstart on their projects and provides a consistent framework for the entire team. These assets can also help your team eliminate unwelcome variations and guesswork regarding branding by ensuring that presentations, marketing materials and campaign strategies consistently solidify your brand identity.
3. Employee Growth
Effective onboarding and training begin with a solid game plan that is easily repeatable and accommodates several scenarios. Whether in-person or remote, these training videos and processes help us go through The Comprise Way®, effectively integrating new employees so they walk out of their first day with confidence. And the ongoing training we do to teach staff how to do “the hard stuff” is essential. All of it came together with our wiki.
Leveraging the corporate wiki allowed us to take our training programs to the next level. When a new employee joins the Comprise team, we review all the policies and use the internal wiki to support that (no PowerPoint or handout required). Our fully interactive training and shadow programs are easily repeatable, provide a consistent experience for all employees and are always accessible for review.
Finally, our company wiki also allowed us to compile all of our professional development resources in a single place, making finding and engaging with material that best aligns with their position and fits their unique goals easier for our staff. Growing our employees is something we value as a company, so streamlining that process made sense.
"If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it."
Sharing Knowledge is Power: Build Your Company Wiki
A strong company wiki can elevate your organization’s performance and internal communications. Our corporate wiki has become a valuable, even beloved, tool chest benefitting our team in many ways. The ability to consolidate and share knowledge, regardless of department or experience level, should never be undervalued.
In a world driven by collaboration, sharing information only makes your team stronger. In our experience, maximizing efficiency, consistency and employee growth has helped fuel our company growth — and the internal wiki was a crucial factor.
Ready to unlock the full potential of your organizational knowledge?
Learn from our experience and start building your company wiki today.
