At first glance, metrics like employee satisfaction, turnover rate, or absenteeism tend to get most of the attention in HR dashboards.
But there’s another metric that often flies under the radar, and it can tell you a lot about where your support, knowledge base, or communication could be falling short.
That metric is – empty searches.
An empty search is when someone uses your employee intranet’s search tool and finds no result for their query.
It means they were actively looking for something and didn’t find it.
That’s a signal – of missing content, unclear labelling, or lack of awareness.
Keep reading to understand how Stribe’s Employee Intranet makes it simple to track empty searches and other useful metrics you may not have considered.
With built-in analytics, Stribe admins can see how company resources are performing, and receive feedback from employees – all while maintaining staff anonymity.
Stribe’s employee intranet resource dashboard reports on these metrics:
Empty searches highlight the gaps where people are looking for answers, but coming up short.
Perhaps you don’t have a document or policy covering a certain process or topic.
The information exists, but under a different name or in a different place, or the search index simply didn’t pick it up.
Employees use a different word than what you used (“sick leave” vs “illness absence” or “holiday entitlement” vs “annual leave policy”) so they can’t find what they need.
Even if content exists and is searchable, people might not know the intranet has it (or how to search for it).
Perhaps frontline staff, remote workers, or employees in certain departments or demographics have different needs and the intranet content isn’t tailored or communicated well to them.
🚨 By paying attention to how often searches return no results, what is being searched, and who is doing the searching, HR and internal comms teams can get really valuable actionable insight.
Tracking empty searches alongside other analytics gives you:
Instead of waiting for people to complain or for issues to surface, you can use search data to identify gaps early.
If employees are repeatedly searching for something and coming up empty, that’s a friction point – wasting time, creating confusion, potentially reducing trust in internal tools.
New starters are especially reliant on the intranet for policies, process overviews, training materials. Empty searches during onboarding can indicate missing or poorly communicated materials.
Because you can see patterns over what different people are searching for (while preserving anonymity), you can ensure everyone has what they need.
Rather than just making content and hoping for impact, you can measure what content is needed, what’s working, what isn’t, and allocate resources accordingly.
E.g. Monthly or quarertly, check what terms have come up with no results.
If many people are searching for “remote work policy” and getting nothing, that should be addressed promptly.
If your policy is called “Hybrid Working Guidelines” but people search “remote work policy,” consider adding synonyms or redirecting searches via tagging or content.
Write up new articles, policies, or FAQs to fill the gap. Or re-organise content so it’s easier to find.
Use Stribe’s announcement feature so people know the new resource is there.
After adding or adjusting content, see if future searches for the same term drop. That’s how you measure impact.
Empty searches are one of those under-utilised HR metrics that can drive real improvements in how your organisation supports its people.
If your intranet platform doesn’t let you track empty searches, most popular content, or average time reading, you might be missing out on valuable signals.
With a tool like Stribe, these metrics are visible right in your dashboard…
About the author
Starting out her early career as a journalist, Jade Madeley is an accomplished content writer with 8+ years’ experience across business, personal finance, SaaS, human resources and employee engagement. Working with Stribe, she crafts insightful content that brings complex HR topics to life and drives meaningful action.
