There is no replacement or synonym for the word face book. Face book is synonymous with a presentation page with portrait photos. A company register or the golden pages of a company or organisation. It contains contact and location details.
What is a staff directory?
A face book is a company register or the golden pages of an organisation or company. It contains contact and location details, details about the department and about the person. Always supplemented with a professional business portrait.
Sometimes there are publications or areas of expertise that the person knows more about. If you are looking for someone with knowledge of a specific product, market, or a special client, a face book makes your search easier.
WHAT DO YOU USE A TEAM PAGE FOR?
You use a staff directory to look up who you need in a specific department. Or a manager of a specific department, building, or location. Someone who has knowledge of a particular client or product. Or is responsible for a specific part of the production process.
Often the person's social media channels are on the page. For companies with various locations, Microsoft Teams or Google Workspace details and availability are also included.
With a professional staff directory, you add a link to LinkedIn to easily check the contacts of the person you are looking for.
Who uses a staff directory?
You can use a face book on an association's website to introduce the trainers, the board, or important people in the association. You can introduce team members on a team page.
But a staff directory is usually used by larger organisations, factories, and companies. It's smart to create a proposal page when there are two or more locations. You often don't know who's working at the other locations, and there's often an overlap in roles. You can shorten communication lines by creating a proposal page with enough information so you can easily reach each other if you have questions. This reduces the distance. Many people work from home. The more information is and remains available, the more effective the page will be.
In large organisations, the availability of a staff directory is very important. Many roles have the same responsibilities at their core. If the proposal page states which projects a person has worked on, that's good for collaboration.
HOW DO YOU CREATE A TEAM PAGE?
Proposal pages have been created for as long as companies have been collaborating. Initially, it was in the form of a booklet. A professional portrait photo combined with a phone number, location, building, department, and manager was sufficient. And you had an internal phone book.
That time is long gone. Collaboration is the keyword, and online tools like Slack, Google Workspace, Teams, SharePoint, Salesforce, and many others make it easier than ever to work together. But it also makes things more complex. What do you use to create a staff directory?
There are nice plugins for SharePoint. You can create a WordPress site. If you work for a larger organisation, it's a good idea to ask an IT or ICT expert or the system administrator if they have any ideas or perhaps already have a solution.
The proposal page needs to be easily searchable, employees and specialists must be able to easily update their own pages and add new information. It's even easier if the basic information, including photos, comes from an HR application, after which you can add to the information.
Who is included in a staff directory?
Everyone. But in practice, that's not always convenient. Staff members in a permanent or flexible role insist on it.
Not all production employees are listed in the staff directory because they change frequently. They often only work there for a few weeks before moving on to work elsewhere. It is therefore not wise to feature employees in short-term roles or those who change frequently on the introduction page with a business portrait or a social media portrait. You only have business portraits taken a few times a year. And by then, that production employee may no longer be working for you.
You can use the following guideline. Project staff who are not employed by you or are only temporarily employed, production staff, temporary skilled workers hired through employment agencies, self-employed individuals you hire flexibly should not be included on the proposal page. They are often only present for a short time and only for a project or a period.
The people you want to include are your permanent employees or permanently hired flexible professionals, project employees, or freelancers who work for you long-term.
Can you still create a staff directory under the GDPR?
A professional portrait or social media portrait can display special personal data of an employee, and special personal data is protected under the GDPR.
It is therefore important that the employee gives permission for the use of the portrait photo in a staff directory. You can do this by having an employee sign a consent form. I always combine this with a sequential number so I know who I have photographed. The form states what the photo and data will be used for. You may not pressure the employee to sign the form; he or she must do so entirely of their own free will.
Under the GDPR, employees always have the right to withdraw their consent to its use at any time.
It is therefore useful that if you get the information directly from the personnel file or from the personnel software, you can indicate that the software does not show the photo in the staff directory.
When would you not create a staff directory?
You don't create a face book if you don't want your employees to look each other up. You might be alone or with 5 to 10 people. Then everyone knows each other. You have your colleagues' contact details in your phone and can easily reach them.
If you have more than 10 to 15 employees, or if you work from different locations, or only online, remotely, or from home, then it is wise to do so to increase togetherness.
How to set up a face book?
- You start by gathering the initial information.
- Consult with the IT person or ICT specialist about which tool you can use or if there is a link with the HR software.
- Have a professional business portrait or social media portrait taken of every employee, all skilled workers, management, and staff member. Hire a professional photographer and ensure you can use the photo freely and place it in an image bank. This way, you can also use the portrait on LinkedIn, Microsoft Teams, Google Workspace, Slack, and Facebook.
- Provide good company clothing with the correct logo for the people who wear company clothing. Make sure they are washed, ironed, not grey, and look good. Otherwise, it's better to issue new t-shirts, jumpers, trousers, and jackets.
- Create a list of names so the photographer can check if everyone has been photographed.
- Once you have received everything, combine the information on the face book or introduction page. Supplement the staff system or staff cards with the created portrait and the latest information.
- Present the page to the employees.
- Have new employees photographed there two or four times a year. And have a new professional portrait or profile photo taken every three years.
Take a look here for more examples of Business portrait photos and social media portraits that I have taken for companies