An employee directory is a searchable list of the people in a company: name, role, location and how to reach them. For frontline teams, the useful version shows who is working now, not just who exists.
| Field | Who sees it |
|---|---|
| Name, photo, role, location | All employees |
| Manager | All employees |
| Work chat or work extension | All employees |
| Personal phone number | Only if the employee opts in |
| Home address, date of birth | HR only, never in the directory |
Let employees update their own photo and opt-in details. See employee database.
A security company has 120 guards across 18 client sites. Supervisors keep their own phone lists, which are out of date within weeks. When a guard needs a relief or has an incident, they often call the office to ask who is on at a nearby site.
EZTime announcements send updates to exactly the employees who need them, right on their phone.
The company builds its directory from the employee records: name, photo, site and supervisor, with a link to message each person through the work app. Personal numbers are removed from the shared list; guards can choose to add one. Supervisors can filter the directory by site.
Calls to the office asking “who is on at site 7?” stop within a month. When two guards leave, their entries disappear the same day because the directory follows the employee record, not someone’s spreadsheet.
Directories go stale in three ways: new hires added late, leavers removed late, and changes in role or location never recorded. Linking the directory to the employee record fixes the first two, because the same action that starts or ends employment adds or removes the entry.
For role and location changes, a quarterly check works: send each manager the list of their team as the directory shows it and ask for corrections. In a business with high turnover or many sites, a monthly check may be worth the few minutes. Count the corrections each time; a falling number shows the process is working.
A cleaning company with 85 cleaners removes personal numbers from its shared phone list and lets each person decide whether to show one in the directory. 34 choose to add theirs, mostly crew leads who want coworkers to reach them about cover.
Two cleaners had complained the year before that former coworkers kept calling them after they changed sites. With the opt-in, those complaints stop, and supervisors still reach everyone through the work app.
Name, photo, role, department, location, manager and a work contact method. Personal details only with consent.
Share personal numbers only with the employee’s agreement. Use work channels for contact where possible.
Build it from the HR employee record, and let employees update their own photo and optional details.
A directory helps you find and contact people. An org chart shows who reports to whom.
Yes, on their last day. Keeping them listed confuses coworkers and may share their information longer than needed.
Quarterly works for most businesses: send each manager their team as the directory shows it and ask for corrections. With high turnover or many sites, a monthly check may be worth it.
Digital HR forms, e-signatures and a digital employee file with expiry reminders, plus announcements by location, department or role.