A new starter needs to find the right payroll contact before their first payslip arrives. A project manager needs someone in another office who understands a particular customer sector. Neither should have to ask around in Teams, search old emails or browse an out-of-date organisation chart.
When you create an employee directory in SharePoint, the aim is not to publish a prettier list of names. It is to make people findable by the information colleagues genuinely use: role, team, location, skills and area of responsibility. Done well, it removes small but frequent points of friction across the business. Done badly, it becomes another page staff stop trusting.
Start with the questions people actually ask
Most directories fail because they are designed around the employee record rather than the working day. Before choosing fields or building a page, speak to the people who regularly need to find colleagues: reception, HR, internal communications, team leaders, sales and project staff.
Ask what they search for when they do not know a person’s name. The answers are usually practical: “Who is the health and safety contact in Manchester?”, “Who covers annual leave for this client?” or “Who speaks French?” Those questions should shape the filters and profile fields.
For a small organisation, name, photo, job title, department, email and telephone number may be enough. As the business grows, location, manager, specialist skills, languages, professional accreditations and areas of responsibility become more useful. There is a trade-off. Every extra field creates more maintenance, so only collect information people will search for or that employees need to see.
Avoid turning the directory into a CV database. Personal interests can help colleagues connect, particularly in a dispersed business, but they should be optional. Sensitive personal information does not belong in a general staff directory.
Decide where directory data will come from
The most important design decision is not visual. It is ownership.
Microsoft 365 already holds core profile information for many organisations, such as name, title, department, manager and contact details. Where those fields are accurate, use them as the source. It avoids maintaining the same information in two places and makes updates part of the normal joiner, mover and leaver process.
The complication is that the fields people want to search are not always available or consistently completed. A SharePoint list can hold supplementary directory information such as office base, expertise, first-aid status or local responsibilities. This works well when there is a clear person or team accountable for keeping it current.
A useful rule is simple: HR or IT should own employment data; departments should own their specialist information; internal communications may own profile photos and editorial standards. If no one owns a field, do not add it. An incomplete directory does more damage than a modest one because staff quickly learn that its results cannot be relied upon.
How to create an employee directory people will use
A good directory should work for someone who knows exactly who they need and someone who only knows the type of person they need. That means combining a prominent keyword search with clear filters.
Put the search box at the top of the page and make filtering quick. Department and location are common starting points. For larger organisations, job family, skills or services can be useful too. Keep the first view broad enough to browse, then allow colleagues to narrow results without learning a complicated search syntax.
Each result should answer the immediate question: who is this person, what do they do and how can I contact them? A photo, name, job title, team and preferred contact route are usually sufficient on a results card. The full profile can show richer details once someone selects it.
Mobile use matters more than many intranet owners expect. Employees may search from a mobile phone while travelling between sites, working remotely or supporting a customer. Test whether names, filters and contact actions remain usable on a smaller screen. A directory that only works comfortably on a large monitor will not serve the whole business.
The organisation chart has a role, but it is not a replacement for search. It is useful for understanding reporting lines and leadership structures. It is less useful when someone is looking for “the person who manages facilities” and does not know where facilities sits in the hierarchy. Give staff both routes.
Build for the awkward cases, not just the launch day
A directory looks straightforward when every user has one job title, one manager and one office. Real organisations are less tidy. People cover multiple roles, work across departments, have dotted-line management or move between sites during the week.
Agree how these cases will be represented before launch. For example, a person may have one formal department but several searchable areas of expertise. A shared responsibility, such as fire marshal or mental health first aider, should be visible as a role that can be searched rather than buried in a biography.
Also decide what happens when information is missing. Showing an empty field is rarely helpful. Better options are to hide the field, provide a central team contact or use a controlled “not supplied” process during data preparation. The aim is not perfect data for its own sake. It is predictable results for users.
Photos deserve particular care. They make a directory more human and improve recognition, but participation, image standards and update arrangements need to be clear. Use an appropriate professional image, allow reasonable alternatives where required, and do not make employees chase colleagues for photographs indefinitely.
Keep access and privacy proportionate
An employee directory should be useful without exposing more than the audience needs. In most cases, contact details and role information can be available to all internal staff. Information for selected groups, such as emergency contacts, personal mobile numbers or detailed professional records, should not appear by default.
Think about who can search the directory too. A page intended for employees may not be suitable for guests, external partners or everyone in a wider Microsoft 365 environment. Apply permissions deliberately, then test them using a standard employee account rather than an administrator account.
Data protection is not solved by a privacy notice at the bottom of a page. It is addressed through sensible field choices, a clear business purpose, appropriate access and a process for corrections. Keep only what helps colleagues work together.
Choose buy versus build with the maintenance cost included
SharePoint can support a basic people page using standard components and profile information. For a small business with simple needs, that may be entirely adequate. The limitation appears when you need a proper directory experience: searchable profile cards, useful filters, supplementary attributes, an organisation view and a layout that fits your intranet.
At that point, commissioning a bespoke SPFx solution can be difficult to justify. A custom directory may cost £8,000 or more before considering requirements, testing, future changes and support. It can make sense where the directory has unusual integrations or highly specific processes. For the usual requirement – help employees find the right colleague quickly – it is often an expensive way to recreate an established pattern.
A production-ready web part gives you a quicker route, provided it works natively in your Microsoft 365 tenant and does not send employee data to an external platform. ThePoint’s Employee Directory web part is available from £249 per year, includes tenant installation and configuration, and can be trialled before purchase. It is designed for organisations that want visible intranet improvement within days rather than a custom development project stretching over months.
The product route is not automatically right for every case. Check that the available filters, profile layout and data sources match the questions your staff need answered. A free trial is useful precisely because it lets you test with your own directory data, branding and users before committing.
Treat launch as the beginning of ownership
Do not launch the page quietly and assume staff will find it. Add it to your main intranet navigation, show a short example of the searches it solves, and include it in new-starter guidance. If people still default to asking in a chat, that is feedback on discoverability or usefulness, not employee behaviour to be corrected.
Review the directory after the first month. Look for failed searches, missing teams, duplicate job titles and fields nobody uses. Then make small adjustments. A directory does not need a large redesign to improve; adding one well-chosen responsibility filter may save more time than a new visual treatment.
The best employee directory becomes unremarkable in the right way. Staff stop noticing the system because they can find the person they need, contact them and get on with the work.