5 Reasons to fill out Your eXo Platform profile page
A lot of you may already be aware that eXo platform provides employees with a rich profile page that enables them to share not only their picture and contact information but also any relevant professional background, experience, and skill information.
eXo systematically encourages organizations that adopt its platform to make sure their employees fill out and keep their professional profile information up-to-date. There are quite a few reasons and benefits to doing this, mostly relating to collaboration and networking effectively inside the platform. Let’s take a look at some examples of how this information can benefit the user and the organization as a whole.
1. Better onboarding of new employees
Starting work in a new organization is often not the most simple and enjoyable process. You must quickly get to know the people that you will be interacting and collaborating with. You also need to figure out whom to contact for any request, problem, or task.
With the eXo Platform employee profile directory fully indexed by the unified search engine, a simple search by skills and other key information helps a newcomer find and connect with the right people inside the organization. This helps shorten the time required to become a productive member of the team. By the same token, existing employees no longer need to wait in order to get to know newcomers—they get instant access to their roles, backgrounds, and—most importantly—the new skills that have just come on board and can contribute to the team.
2. More efficient project teams
The information included in employee profiles makes it easier to create new project teams, taking into account each member’s track record and what they will bring to the table within the project at hand. Bringing in new expertise, useful soft skills, or relevant previous experiences helps to build a more effective project team without the need for extensive internal meetings and interviews.
As project managers know, a project’s success depends on how well it’s planned. Easily accessible information on employees and their areas of expertise helps them to better assess the potential of the team and estimate capabilities and potential shortcomings, which in turn contributes to a more efficiently managed project.
3. Expert identification and findability
Inside the company, each employee is generally an expert in at least one area, but some are more so than others. Imagine a sales manager who has over 10 years of experience in the banking sector, an engineer who worked for several years developing exclusively in Java, or an employee fluent in a foreign language.
By identifying them and learning more about them through their profile pages, you can leverage the expertise available in your organization. Experts can start to easily recognize each other and get together within a workspace for a meaningful collaboration. This can also have the effect of generating more ideas and driving innovation within projects and initiatives.
4. Communities of interest
Organizations realize now more than ever the benefits of employee engagement and well-being, as well as the importance of a healthy culture of open communication, networking, and a sense of belonging. As a result, they are increasingly investing in team-building activities, employee engagement solutions, and other support systems to build connection.
How is this related to profiles in eXo Platform? Employees instinctively gather into communities of interest, such as a community of employees interested in design who share best practices, advice, market trends, etc. These internal communities can be more easily created when people have shared this skill on their profile pages. Such a community can generate cohesion around a specific work skill, strengthen the link between employees and, consequently, improve their level of engagement with their organization.
5. Employee visibility: an internal evolution
Promoting your knowledge and skills through your profile page not only benefits others by making it easier to find you, it also improves your chances as an employee of being found by managers looking to hire people with your expertise. Your profile page becomes a virtual internal curriculum vitae, allowing your human resources department and team managers to evaluate the pool of internal candidates for new positions, and providing you with career growth opportunities.
Better employee mobility and internal professional development means a more satisfied workforce, lower employee turnover rates, and lower costs of recruiting and training external hires.
In addition to this top 5 list, maintaining effective eXo employee profiles, directories, and searchability can bring your organization other indirect benefits, such as helping employees who work in different locations and timezones to collaborate more effectively.
Brahim Jaouane
I am a Digital Marketing specialist specialized in SEO at eXo Platform. Passionate about new technologies and Digital Marketing. With 10 years' experience, I support companies in their digital communication strategies and implement the tools necessary for their success. My approach combines the use of different traffic acquisition levers and an optimization of the user experience to convert visitors into customers. After various digital experiences in communication agencies as well as in B2B company, I have a wide range of skills and I am able to manage the digital marketing strategy of small and medium-sized companies.