Almost every company has an internal FAQ page. Almost nobody uses it. The usual reason is simple: it was written once, by someone guessing what colleagues might ask, and then left alone. Answers are out of date, the questions sound like policy headings, and a quick message to a colleague is faster.
A useful FAQ is small, current and easy to find. It takes a few weeks to build and a little regular care.
Why most internal FAQs are ignored
- The questions are invented. They reflect what the authors consider important, not what people ask.
- Nobody owns the answers. When a rule changes, nobody knows which entry to update.
- It is too long. Past about thirty entries people stop reading and start scrolling.
- It lives in the wrong place. A page three clicks deep in the intranet is not where people look when they have a question.
- Answers are vague. "Contact HR" is not an answer.
Collect the top 20 questions
Do not start by writing. Start by collecting. Useful sources are:
- the emails and chat messages that reach HR, IT, finance and the office manager,
- the questions new joiners ask in their first month,
- searches on the intranet that return nothing useful (see why intranet search is often broken),
- a short question to colleagues: "What did you last have to ask someone because you could not find it?"
Collect for two to four weeks, group similar questions and count them. Keep the twenty that come up most often. The rest can wait; a second round later will show whether they matter.
Write answers that finish the job
A good answer is short and ends with what to do next.
- Start with the answer, not the background. "Send the form to finance by the 5th of the month" before the explanation.
- Use the words people used when they asked. If colleagues say "holiday", do not title the entry "Annual leave entitlement".
- Link to the form, page or system the answer refers to.
- Name a person or team to contact only if the answer really needs one, and give a way to reach them.
- Keep each answer to a few sentences. Longer procedures belong on their own page, and the FAQ links there.
Give every answer an owner
This is the step that decides whether the FAQ is alive a year later. For each entry record three things: the owner (a person or role, not "the intranet team"), the date of the last check, and the date of the next one.
Owners are usually the people who already answer the question by hand: HR for leave, IT for passwords and devices, finance for expenses. Ask them to review their entries every six months, and immediately when a related rule changes. The same principle applies to the rest of your intranet; see how to give intranet pages an owner and a review date.
An entry with no owner after the first round should be removed rather than kept "just in case".
Where the FAQ lives
The best place is wherever people already ask.
- Next to search. Show the most common questions on the search page and let the search suggest FAQ entries first.
- On the related pages. The expense page shows the three expense questions. One entry can appear in several places if it is stored once.
- In chat. If colleagues ask in a team channel, pin a link to the FAQ and answer with a link to the entry, so the entry becomes the source people recognise.
- On the start page. A short block with the five most used questions is enough.
A separate "FAQ" menu item is the weakest option, but it is useful as a complete list for those who want to browse.
Keep it at twenty
Resist the pressure to add every question. Before adding a new entry, check whether it is asked often, whether an existing entry can be extended, and whether it belongs on a regular page instead. Once or twice a year remove entries nobody has opened. If you cannot see page views, ask the owners which entries still generate questions.
How to know it works
You do not need elaborate analytics.
- Repeated questions fall. HR, IT and the office manager should see fewer identical messages. Ask them after two months.
- Search without result drops. Fewer failed searches for topics the FAQ covers.
- New joiners find answers alone. Ask a few of them in their first month which questions they could answer themselves.
If the numbers do not move, the problem is usually placement or wording, not the content. If people do not open the intranet at all, look at why employees do not use the intranet.
Common mistakes
- Writing the FAQ at a desk instead of collecting real questions.
- Publishing a hundred entries at once.
- Entries without an owner or a review date.
- Answers that only say "contact the department".
- Hiding the FAQ in a deep menu.
- Never removing old entries.
Summary
An internal FAQ people use is built from about twenty real questions, written as short answers in the colleagues' own words, with a named owner and a review date for each. Put it next to search, on the related pages and in chat, and judge it by whether repeated questions to HR, IT and the office go down.
Sources
- Our related articles linked above.
- The approach of collecting real questions and assigning owners is common practice in intranet and knowledge management, used here as a practical guide for small and mid-sized companies, not as a formal standard. No client results or market figures are claimed in this article.