What’s the cost of poor communication to and between employees? Millions according to research. Slight misunderstandings or silos can happen here and there, but if they happen too often: This is where you have a problem (and a big one). Miscommunication is always associated with poor communication strategies and inadequate tools. One of the most underrated in my opinion is a business glossary.
In this post, we’ll explore why a business glossary is essential and how to run one effectivel.
But first…What is a business glossary?
Think of a business glossary as your centralized hub where you can store all business terms and definitions, in use within your company. It’s not just a collection of terms; it’s an ever evolving piece of content that ensures that everyone—from new hires to seasoned employees—is on the same page.
Beyond terms and definitions, a business glossary should also include a variety of metadata, such as acronyms, labels,and maybe even rich media. This depth transforms it from a simple reference guide into a powerful alignment tool for your business.
Why is a business glossary important?
Enhance understanding & ensure consistency
I remember when I started my first job in Marketing, we didn’t have a business glossary. So whenever I had a question about a specific term or acronym, I’d just ask someone. Once, then twice, then lots of times. This is an issue in itself, but an even bigger one is: Who’s giving you the definition? Someone from another team, from your team, or even Google? More often than not, different teams have different definitions for the exact same term. Additionally, Google will give you an answer but it might not align with your company’s definition. This inconsistency doesn’t just waste time—it creates confusion and huge misunderstanding.
This is where a business glossary comes in. By centralizing all terms within either a central location or multiple team spaces, your teams can look for terms in the right place. This, of course, eliminates any confusion and saves your teams some valuable time.
Streamline employee onboarding
Getting started at a new job is overwhelming in itself, it gets even tougher when you can’t follow all the corporate jargon in use. And this holds true for any business function. To tackle this, you might want to implement a business glossary. Instead of asking colleagues for what “OKR” or “MQL” stands for, they can consult the glossary and get up to speed faster. This reduces onboarding time and makes the overall experience less overwhelming.
Here a common best practice is to create one holistic business glossary for all (kind of) generic business terms. For more in-depth terms, you can create a glossary within a dedicated team space.
Check out this post for some onboarding tips!
Enhance customer interaction and experience
When dealing with customers, employees are expected to have the right answers. There’s nothing worse than hearing two different versions from two people at the same company, right? The issue here is obvious, lack of consistency. Consistency in internal communication often translates to better external communication. When teams are aligned on definitions, they can provide clearer, more accurate information to customers.
For example, if your sales and support teams have different interpretations of what constitutes an “engaged user,” it can result in mixed messages to clients. A business glossary ensures everyone is speaking the same language, which ultimately improves the overall customer experience.
Best practices to better manage your business glossary
Creating a business glossary is one thing, managing it effectively is another. Here are a couple key practices to help you run your business glossary.
1. Gather terms from multiple channels
The first step to creating your business glossary is to identify which terms to include. More often than not, terms and definitions are scattered across multiple channels and departments. Excel sheets, emails, intranet pages, and of course, your teams, all have terms and definitions.
Make sure to designate dedicated individuals who will be responsible to perform an audit, collect terms, definitions, and metadata. Terms frequently used and that might have different definitions (depending on the team) are absolute must haves at the start. Then, encourage teams to contribute their own frequently used terms. You’ll build a more comprehensive glossary and create a sense of ownership across your business.
2. Start small
When it comes to creating a glossary, less is more—at least when you’re just getting started. We’ve seen a lot of businesses fall into the trap of adding everything and anything to their glossary all at once. Fair to say, this is a recipe for disaster as the glossary becomes harder to navigate, and manage long term resulting in a poor experience.
Instead, try to focus on high-priority terms that are critical to operations or frequently misunderstood. Starting small keeps things manageable and makes it easier to ensure accuracy and consistency before expanding.
3. choose the right tools
Choosing the right solutions is important to help you better run your business glossary. The question here is: How can I choose the right one? The first thing to look for is a solution that integrates well with what you already have. For example, if you’re using Confluence as your intranet, you might want to look for native features or third party apps to integrate within your various spaces. Then, of course, you’d have to look for key features like highlighting and creating terms on the go, tagging, advanced search, import/export, and more.
4. Make It collaborative (and properly manage permissions)
Your glossary will only thrive if everyone feels like they can contribute and have their say. For example, if your new hires can’t manage to find a specific term, or just found some duplicates, they should be able to make the suggestion. And the key word here is: Suggestion. Although you want your glossary to be collaborative, you don’t want to grant creation rights to everyone. Edits and approvals should be handled by a smaller, dedicated team to maintain consistency and quality control.
5. Leverage labels and categories
For glossaries with a small number of terms, labels might not seem as a must have. But as your glossary grows, so is the need for classification. And labels are made to help you achieve just that: Better classify terms and facilitate access. The labels you create depend entirely on your glossary and overall business and team structure. You might want to classify terms based on teams, specific projects, product lines, and more. For example, you can label terms by a specific department like MKG for Marketing, FIN for Finance, and so on.
Labels and categories not only improve usability but also help employees locate terms relevant to their roles.
6. Keep it updated
Outdated glossaries are perhaps the most common challenge you’re likely to find in any business. And they’re quite the hurdle for effective communication and collaboration. Usually, businesses might lack the resources, time, or maybe even care , to audit and update their glossaries. At times, the task in itself might feel daunting as there are thousands upon thousands of entries to update. Obviously, the best practice is to make time for regular updates—whether it’s quarterly or semi-annually. Assign ownership to a specific person or team to maintain accountability. You can further facilitate the process by encouraging team members to make suggestions whenever they find any outdated information.
7. Make it searchable and SEO-Friendly
As good as your glossary might be, it needs to be found. So the question here is how to optimize your glossary content for better search. The first step is to actually add the terms your teams actually look for and use specific keywords that drive traffic. For example, for a term such as Objectives Key Results, make sure to associate the acronym OKR within either the term title or metadata. Then depending on your dedicated glossary solution, you can make terms easily highlighted within pages, and of course, use the advanced search function.
For customer-facing glossaries, SEO optimization is key. Use clear, keyword-rich definitions that align with what your audience is searching for. Structure terms with headings, concise definitions, and interlinks to related content. Optimizing for rich snippets and mobile usage can further boost visibility, helping your glossary content rank in search results and attract organic traffic.
A well-managed business glossary is more than just a nice-to-have—they’re quite essential in helping you streamline communication, and boost productivity.
By following these best practices and steering clear of common pitfalls (which is reversing the best practices), you can create a glossary that becomes an indispensable part of your business.
