Connect your digital workplace with enhanced employee profiles

Detailed employee profiles can go a long way in a digital workplace. They make it easier for colleagues to find and connect with one another, and build meaningful relationships digitally.

Not sure how to create or manage profile cards for your employees? Read on to learn all you need to know.

What is an employee profile?

An employee profile summarizes a worker’s professional background, skills and experience. In some ways, an employee profile functions like a résumé, except it’s for a specific company’s internal use only. Employee profiles allow teammates to learn more about their coworkers, including their skills and expertise, the projects they’re working on and their contact information.

What should an employee profile include?

Your employee profile can have just the basics or provide a comprehensive picture of your skills and background. It might include the following:

• Basic information, like your name, job title, department and location
• A professional summary outlining your expertise and professional background
• Your contact information, including email and phone number
• A list of your skills as they relate to your role
• Work experience, including previous roles and responsibilities, achievements in past positions and relevant projects
• Education, including degrees earned
• Relevant credentials and training
• Professional affiliations, including memberships with professional organizations
• Languages you speak
• Personal interests and hobbies
• A summary of ongoing projects
• Availability, including your time zone and typical work hours

Example of an employee profile card

Imagine you’re a brand-new employee who needs to set up a meeting with Tara in accounting. Which Tara? What time zone is she in? What are her responsibilities? A basic Slack profile has you covered:

Name: Tara Smith
Job title: HR Manager
Pronouns: She/her
Name pronunciation: teh-ruh smith
Department: Human Resources
Slack availability: Active
Slack status: Working from home today!
Local time: 3:33 p.m.
Location: Phoenix
Employment status: Full-time employee

An employee profile might also display:

Availability: Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. (MST)
Professional summary: Results-driven human resources manager with more than a decade of experience developing and executing innovative HR strategies. Proven track record of leading cross-functional teams in fast-paced environments.
Contact information:

• Phone: (602) 123-4567
• Primary email: tara.smith@exampleorg.com

Skills and expertise:
HR strategy, employee onboarding, employee relations, people management, employee administration management

Company experience (2012-present):

• Manages employee onboarding and offboarding
• Acts as point of contact for employee inquiries
• Supervises team of HR specialists

Education:

• Bachelor of Science in human resources, University of Arizona (2008-2012)

Certifications:

• Society for Human Resource Management Certified Professional (SHRM-CP)

Professional affiliations:

• Member, SHRM

Languages:

• Fluent in English, Spanish

Interests and hobbies:

• Baking, running, traveling

Current projects:

• Coaching managers and employees on performance and expectations
• Managing recruitment for open roles

Why employee profiling is important for businesses

Only 33% of U.S. employees feel engaged at work, according to Gallup data from August 2023. Globally, less than one-quarter of employees report feeling engaged. And since highly engaged employees perform better, it’s crucial to get those numbers up.

Several factors can cause employee disengagement: lack of recognition, unclear communication and isolation, to name a few. Tools like employee profiles can increase understanding and familiarity among coworkers, even those on remote and hybrid teams.

Teammates who know one another better can engage, collaborate and problem-solve more effectively.

Let’s explore the various types of employee profiles and how they can help with management, team building and collaboration.

Types of employee profiles

A profile can do more than summarize an employee’s experience. It can also indicate an employee’s level of engagement, recognition, success and collaboration. Plus, comprehensive profiles give employees insights into their teammates’ expertise, which can help them choose the right collaboration partners.

Employee profiles also serve as powerful networking tools, which employees can leverage to build connections across their organization. If an employee needs to find a coworker with specific knowledge or expertise to help with a project, for example, they can use their colleagues’ profiles to identify and connect with the right experts.

Profiles can work on a social level too. For example, employees can use them to identify coworkers with shared interests and hobbies.

Employee engagement profile

An employee engagement profile provides insights into an employee’s level of connection to their work, team and organization. Through engagement profiles, managers can tailor employee engagement initiatives to boost overall job satisfaction and commitment.
You might include the following information in an employee engagement profile:

• Professional background and achievements
• Skills and competencies
• Interests and preferences
• Communication style
• Recognition and motivation factors

Employee recognition profile

When employees feel recognized and valued, they demonstrate better engagement, motivation and commitment in their jobs. On the other hand, lack of recognition ranks among the top three reasons employees leave their jobs, according to research by Quantum Workplace.
Fostering employee recognition can help develop a culture of appreciation, and managers can start with employee recognition profiles, which may contain:

• Recognition history and preferences
• Types of rewards and acknowledgments that are meaningful to the employee
• Notable accomplishments and milestones

Employee success profile

Employee success profiles help align organizational goals with individual career objectives. They can help managers create roadmaps for employees’ career development and ensure that they feel supported in their professional journeys.

A success profile can include the following details about an employee:

• Career aspirations and goals
• Professional achievements and milestones
• Desired career development opportunities
• Skills and competencies relevant to future roles

Team project profile

Team project profiles detail employees’ contributions to specific team projects, including their roles, achievements and impact. These profiles help team members learn from each other’s project experiences.

Employee talent profile

Employee talent profiles showcase employee skills, competencies and expertise. They help managers put together teams with complementary skills for certain projects.

Employee personality profile

Employee personality profiles explore employees’ personality traits, communication styles and collaboration preferences. These profiles can help improve team dynamics and reduce misunderstandings and conflicts.

For example, an extroverted team member might prefer face-to-face discussions, while a more introverted colleague might favor communicating over email. And some employees prefer structured workflows and detailed plans, while others thrive in more flexible environments.

How to write an effective employee profile

When writing an employee profile, aim for the following:

• Readability and accessibility: Headings, subheadings and bullet points make it easy to locate information
• Consistency across profiles: A standardized structure presents employees in a professional, unified way
• Easy information retrieval: Managers, HR members and colleagues can quickly retrieve specific details about an employee, such as their contact information or job history, without sifting through unrelated content
• Update- and revision-friendly: Employees should be able to easily add new skills or experiences to customize their profiles

Each workplace has its own employee profiling process, but below we’ve outlined the basic steps you should follow.

Step 1: Gather essential information

Each employee should detail their professional background, including their work history and key responsibilities in their current role. The employee should also highlight significant career milestones and achievements, technical and soft skills, and specialized training and certifications. They might also mention their hobbies, personal interests and passions.

A profile should also touch on the employee’s preferred method of communication (such as Slack, email or phone) and their professional goals.

Step 2: Consider team and organizational needs

Employees should consider how their skills and working style align with their team’s needs. Encourage workers to highlight their collaboration experiences and skills, and showcase how their achievements contribute to broader objectives.

Step 3: Use multimedia elements

Support employees in putting a face to their name with a professional headshot or another appropriate photo. A team member could even include a short video clip where the employee shares insights about their role, experience and personal interests.

A profile could also include:

• Infographics to show key achievements or milestones
• Examples of the employee’s work, such as code samples or a link to their portfolio

Step 4: Encourage employee input

Involve employees in the profiling process by encouraging them to write their own bios or summaries. Consider scheduling one-on-one feedback sessions to discuss each employee’s profile so they can share any additional insights or make revisions if necessary.

Managing employee profiles

Creating a profile is just half the battle. You also have to keep employee profiles updated and organized.

An effective profile management system ensures easy access to essential employee data when needed. This can help with tracking skills and competency, assessing performance, planning promotions, and recognizing and rewarding employees.

Organizing your company’s employee profiles can make onboarding and offboarding more efficient too. For example, during onboarding, a profile management system with standardized templates makes it easy to quickly set up new employee profiles. And when employees leave, the system makes it easier to locate, deactivate and archive their profiles.

Software and tools for efficient profile management

• Slack Atlas: Atlas reimagines the employee directory, helping teams work more effectively by providing valuable contextual information about employees—directly in Slack.
• Workday: The Worker Profile Management feature captures essential employee information like location, previous assignments, employment duration and organizational unit. Plus, Workday provides smooth integration with Slack.
• BambooHR: BambooHR’s self-service feature helps users keep their profiles up to date and gives managers access to the employee information they need.

Leveraging Slack Atlas for worker profile management

When you click on a colleague’s name in Slack, their profile card pops up on the right-hand side of the app. That’s Slack Atlas in action.

Atlas provides a comprehensive employee directory on the Slack platform. It makes collaborating across your organization a breeze by offering relevant details about colleagues through the following key features.

• Rich user profiles: Worker profiles display essential information such as skills, affiliations, contact info, key projects and interests.
• Interactive org chart: Need to find the right collaborators for a specific project? Use the org chart to find the colleague with the right skills and experience.
• Enterprise-scale profile management: If you’re using an enterprise HR system to manage employee information, no problem. You can populate key Atlas profile information using SCIM. Employees can also customize their own profiles.

Building stronger connections with employee profiles

A company’s strength lies in its employee connections, and strong employee profiles foster a more connected workforce. When your teammates know who they’re working with on both a professional and a personal level, they can collaborate more effectively and build more meaningful professional relationships.

Contact Slack’s sales team to learn how you can use Slack to create effective employee profiles and build a more positive workplace culture.