Building a Knowledge Base for HR: Best Practices from a Customer who has "Been There, Done That!"

[jenstroud]

One of the most frequently asked questions I get from prospects and customers alike is "How do we begin to build a Knowledge Base for HR?"   I finally decided that it would be a good idea to go ahead and publish the best practices I developed when I was on the customer side and we built our knowledge base.   I hope you find this information helpful.

"HR service delivery models that include a comprehensive knowledge base deliver the highest level of efficiency to the organization."

—CedarCrestone, 2015 HR Systems Survey

HR Knowledge Base — How to begin

•             Build it

—           It is possible to build a knowledge base without external support from an expert or the vendor

—           It can be time consuming

—           No one else knows your employees and your "knowledge" like you do

—           Assign a team to initially build the KB

—           Ensure all SMEs across the organization are invested and involved in the building/review process

—           Design a system for cataloging content

•             Hire an Expert

—           Still requires significant involvement from SMEs and project team

—           Initial investment in bringing expert up to speed on company, project objectives and knowledge

—           Will likely speed up the process

—           Expert can cross-train knowledge owner(s)

—           Higher costs

HR Knowledge Base — 2 Primary Audiences

•             Internal KB

—           Available only to HR or Shared Services Staff as "One Source of Truth"

•             Ensures consistency of response across an organization

•             Allows organizations to train new HR/SS staff quickly

•             May include unique language that might help explain content to employees

•             External KB

—           Searched by employees to get answers to HR related questions

•             Allows for greater Tier 0 or "self service"

•             Content must be "personalized"

•             When leveraged with case management, drives greater self service

Building an HR Knowledge Base

Best practices to ensure success:

1.         Identify a knowledge base owner

2.         Take the time to get key information out of the "heads" of HR

3.         Establish a process for flagging issues for the knowledge base

4.         Determine who will write the knowledge base content

5.         Establish standards for authoring quality content

6.         Require technical reviews before content is published

Identify a Knowledge Base Owner

•             Very important to the short and long-term success of your knowledge base

•             Does not have to be a dedicated resource — may wear many hats

•             Ensures content is created and is consistent

•             Monitors cases and determines what new content should be created

•             Makes sure content follows quality standards

•             Through dashboard reporting, identifies top issues and/or concerns within the organization

Take the time to get key information out of the "heads" of HR

•             Interview/survey your most "knowledgeable" HR experts

—           These are the people who are answering employee questions today

•             Time consuming but essential to ensure the success of your KB

•             What are the most commonly asked questions?

•             What are the different ways employees ask the same questions?

•             Where is key information currently stored?

Establish a process for flagging issues for the knowledge base

•             The best way to grow your KB is from closed cases

•             Develop a process for all HR/SS agents to follow to ensure new KB content is created

•             Ensure agents are searching the KB thoroughly before creating new content

•             Ensures KB content is continuously updated/improved

•             Tag cases for easy identification

—           YES:   KB content needs to be created

—           YES:   KB content needs to be updated

—           NO:   New KB content not required

•             Build content creation and maintenance into your workflow

•             Incentivize HR/SS agents to create/identify new content

Note:   More details on what content to include in your KB below

Determine who will write the knowledge base content

•             Creating KB content MUST be a priority

•             Options

—           Technical Writers — Strongest written communication skills

—           Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) — Very knowledgeable on the KB topics

—           Support Agents — Closest to consumers of the knowledge

—           Combination of all three:

•             HR/SS Agents identify new content

•             Tech Writers write content

•             SMEs review content for accuracy and understanding

•             Build content creation into job descriptions and daily workflow

Establish standards for authoring quality content

•             You only have 1 opportunity to make a good first impression

—           Develop a template for your articles

—           Keep articles short and digestible

—           Use clear, action based titles

—           Define terms and jargon

—           Add search phrases to articles

—           Link articles to show relationships

Require technical reviews before content is published

•             Take advantage of workflow to ensure content is reviewed properly before it's published

•             Too many errors and inconsistencies will reduce the effectiveness of your KB

•             Do NOT allow content creators to publish knowledge articles directly

•             Involve SME's in content review

•             Limit the publishing of content to the KB owner

"Data is nothing without understanding."   James Freeman-Gray (6/2015)

Additional Thoughts

•             Build your KB with the consumer in mind

—           Internal user

—           External user

•             Design navigation around user needs and journeys

•             Keep language clear and concise

—           Improve user experience with user centered language

When building a thorough Knowledge Base from scratch, there are a lot of factors to be considered.   The first and foremost is deciding what to put in your KB.

Step 1:   Understand the need:   It is important that your Knowledge Base contains all the necessary information. But, before you proceed to write articles, you need to understand the issues employees are frequently asking, identify areas where there are issues that employees can resolve without agent intervention and prioritize those topics over the others.

Step 2:   Constructing the Knowledge Base:   The SN Knowledge base allows your repository to be the one stop shop for all issues. SN lets you create knowledge base articles right from the ticket so that you can save the time spent in sitting and creating a new KB article.

However, it is a good idea to think ahead and ask your HR team to document the most frequently asked questions from employees.   For example:   1) What is our vacation policy?   2) Does our company allow employees to work from home?   3) Does our company offer a referral bonus for open positions?   You get the idea.   The most frequently asked questions will differ from company to company and from region to region.   It is also important to ensure that your HR team is thinking broadly across the organization and not just about a certain employee group — hourly employees for example.   Though executives may use the KB less, you still need to include their frequently asked questions.

Once you have gathered the 20 or so most frequently asked questions, now it's time to write the responses to these questions.   Again, be sure to think about how you would respond to the question based on WHO is asking it.   You may have multiple answers for the same question and you will need to tag these answers accordingly so that the right employee group can access it.

Step 3:   Type of Knowledge Base:   Your knowledge base can be either internal or external or both. You could create a simple version with detailed information for your external Knowledge base that employees can access, while simultaneously building an internal knowledge base with specific details for your support staff. This eliminates the need for separate training for new staff and also makes for quick access to information.

Step 4:   Roles and Privileges:   Not everybody should have access to everything. Specifically for creating and editing, have one or two members with access so that your knowledge base is always accurate and free from errors. You can also not provide your employees with access to the internal Knowledge Base as the jargon can confuse them.

Step 5:   Organize the content:   A chaotic Knowledge Base is worse than no Knowledge Base. If it is not organized chronologically and hierarchically, your employees will never be able to find what they are looking for and this could easily frustrate them. Sort your knowledge base, arrange neatly under categories and tag them to make it easily searchable.

Step 6:   Crisp, concise and clear content:   When writing knowledge base articles, give clear instructions in simple language for employees to understand. Sometimes, it is not wrong to be very granular because what you believe might be a very commonplace thing for you might be difficult for your employees.   Do not assume that your employees will understand what you know very well in HR.   Explain concisely and thoroughly.

Step 7:   Update content and review:   Thoroughly review articles before publishing and also periodically review published articles to ensure accuracy.   A cluttered knowledge base can be ugly. Remove obsolete content from time to time, update old articles with changes and keep your Knowledge Base always up to date with information.   Use the KB workflow available on the SN platform to make this process rather simple and easy.

Step 8:   Social Sharing and feedback:   Encourage your employees to share content they found useful, so that this will help you identify the articles employees find really important. Further, take feedback from customers regarding knowledge base articles to help improve quality of content and make it easier to understand.