How many questions does your HR team answer in a day?
Probably a lot. And, most of these questions are probably repetitive.
Answering repetitive questions can lead to loss of productive time for your team.
The solution is to build internal documentation. It will help employees get answers to their HR-related questions and allow your team to resolve other crucial office matters.
Worried how to kickstart your internal documentation? If yes, time to dive deeper into this article.
What is Internal Documentation?
Internal documentation is maintaining detailed processes and procedures for your team. It is intended for employee reference and to standardize organizational performance. For example, when you build internal documentation for your HR team, they may contribute information about the following:
- Employee onboarding
- Employee roles and responsibilities
- Company policies
- Training materials
Your internal documentation will have all crucial yet common information that internal teams will find useful when trying to understand different aspects of the organization.
Benefits of Internal Documentation
Most companies hesitate to invest in internal documentation. Only 4% of organizations decide to document their internal processes. Here is why you need to invest in internal documentation:
Improves knowledge sharing
Employees spend more time searching for internal information or finding colleagues to assist with specific tasks. Creating internal documentation will improve knowledge sharing culture and streamline the process.
Enhances productivity
When your team is equipped with all the information in one place, they’ll spend less time searching for information. They can spend more time on priority tasks, making them a productive resource for the team.
Eliminates knowledge loss
You must document your knowledge to avoid losing vital information whenever a teammate goes on sick leave or vacation. Instead of valuable knowledge residing in employees’ minds, documenting all the information benefits everyone in the organization,
Assists in onboarding
New employees can quickly understand company policies and procedures when they have access to internal documentation, and the senior employees need to spend less time on training.
4 Popular Types of Internal Documentation to Choose From
Internal documentation is not limited to a specific department; all teams across the organization can benefit from it. Learn about different types of internal documentation.
1. Project documentation
Project documentation is where the manager records all the details related to the project’s progress and resources in one place for other stakeholders. This type of documentation helps you generate essential documents that explain why each process took place and how it helped the organization move one step towards the completion of the project.
2. Team documentation
Team documentation records the company policies, business goals, organizational structure. It also describes roles and responsibilities in your organization, what that role entails, and the resources currently allotted to that role.
3. Process documentation
Want to capture all the steps and measures you took to complete a specific process? This type of documentation helps team members act on a task swiftly, and it is the trusted source for Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and protocols.
4. Technical documentation
Technical documentation is mostly built by engineer and product teams. This documentation offers system requirements and technical specifications.
8 Best Practices to Follow When Creating Internal Documentation
Creating and maintaining high-quality documentation sounds daunting, but it’s not that challenging as you may think. Now, we’ll go through some best practices to manage your documentation.
1. Include flow chart and procedures
Explain each process step and how to accomplish it using a step-by-step approach. To make it look simple, you can include flow charts to help your team.
2. Provide enough information
Don’t miss out on crucial details. Someone who isn’t familiar with the process will find it difficult to follow and get stuck. Use the what, why, and how to approach to write detailed documents. Ideally, it is essential to balance between documenting the crucial details and avoid burdening employees with more information.
3. Make it visual
Some individuals retain information with visuals, rather than reading text. So, include images and videos to improve the documentation experience. It will help your team understand processes easily, and it can be a great way to show employees how to follow a procedure.
4. Establish a simple format and stick to it
Create a documentation template you’d like to use. But make sure it is simple and adaptable according to the various processes. Also, avoid deviating from the same format. This way, all your documents will help users find the right information.
5. Simplify search and navigation
Want your team members to find specific information faster? Include a search bar to your internal documentation. You can also improve search with a detailed navigation bar. Identify the primary and secondary categories of the navigation bar.
6. Choose the right documentation tool
Choosing the right tool will help your employees easily create and publish in a centralized location. There are different knowledge base softwares you can use to create documentation, but an ideal platform should provide an easy-to-use editor, real-time search for the user to find the information, categorization to keep your page organized, and integration with other tools.
7. Refresh and update the document
The processes and organization procedures will change over time, so update your internal documentation regularly. Assign a stakeholder to update the documentation.
8. Gather feedback from employees
After the documentation is released, ask for employee feedback. Use the in-built analytics in the knowledge base software to find terms employees are searching for and which terms aren’t showing results.
Start Building Your Internal Documentation
Possessing internal documentation encourages a pleasant working environment for your employees. It acts as a source of truth when an employee seeks information about company policies and products or services.
About the Author
Jubina Prabhakaran is a digital marketer. She has more than seven years of experience in digital marketing and loves to read and write about technology, marketing, and SaaS-related content.
