HR Knowledge Black Hole? Fix Data Silos with Enterprise Search

Is Your HR Department a Knowledge Black Hole?

Modern HR teams live in a maze of policy documents, onboarding guides, handbooks and FAQs scattered across SharePoint, Google Drive, intranet pages, ticketing tools and chats. When a new starter can’t find the latest parental leave policy—or a manager waits days for a template—the costs show up immediately in lost time, frustration and compliance risk. Traditional search breaks down because the truth isn’t in one place; it’s spread across systems that don’t talk to each other.

Why enterprise search belongs at the heart of HR

The win isn’t “search” in the old sense; it’s trusted answers pulled from every system you use, with security and permissions intact. That’s the promise of Glean, an AI-powered enterprise search platform built to index knowledge across your apps and return a single, definitive answer while respecting your existing access controls. Glean publishes a dedicated HR perspective showing how this model speeds onboarding and policy access and reduces repetitive “where is X?” questions—exactly the pain HR leaders cite most often.

Security is table stakes in HR. Glean documents enterprise controls and certifications—including ISO 27001 and TX-RAMP Level 2—together with guidance on SOC 2 and role-based access, which is crucial when you’re unifying sensitive data from payroll, benefits and employee relations systems.

Connectivity is equally important. Glean ships connectors for the systems HR and employees already use every day—Microsoft 365 and Teams, Google Workspace, Slack, ServiceNow, Zendesk and others—so people can ask once and get the right policy, handbook paragraph or knowledge article without hunting.

There’s also a new layer worth noting: Microsoft Agent 365. In November 2025, Microsoft launched Agent 365 as a control plane for managing AI agents across the enterprise; on the same day, Glean announced a native integration that brings Glean’s context and actions into Microsoft 365 apps via the Model Context Protocol. For HR, that means employees can ask questions in Word, Outlook or Teams and receive secure, policy-aware answers backed by your source systems—without creating yet another silo.

What changes for HR in practice

Onboarding moves faster because new hires can self-serve everything from benefits summaries to IT checklists, with results drawn from the systems you already trust. Day-to-day support gets lighter: instead of your team fielding repeat questions, employees find the latest policy in seconds, with version awareness and permissions handled automatically. Over time, this builds confidence in self-service; as accuracy and speed improve, people default to looking things up first, not raising tickets. The HR function then shifts its energy to strategic programmes—capability building, culture, analytics—instead of serving as a reactive helpdesk.

Compliance posture improves too. A single, governed search layer reduces the risk of staff using outdated PDFs or unapproved guidance. Because Glean honours source-system permissions and publishes its security posture, you can document how sensitive content is protected end-to-end and monitored as systems change.

Enterprise HR search unifies knowledge across tools and returns a single, permission-aware answer—speeding onboarding and policy access while cutting repeated questions to HR. Platforms like Glean connect to Microsoft 365, Slack, ServiceNow and more, carry ISO-level security, and now integrate with Microsoft Agent 365 so staff can get trusted answers inside everyday apps.

FAQs

How is this different from SharePoint or intranet search?
Traditional search only sees one repository. Enterprise search indexes all the places HR content lives—Docs, intranet, ticketing, chat—and returns a single, permission-aware answer, reducing duplicate hunting.

Is it secure enough for HR and ER content?
Yes—Glean documents ISO 27001 and TX-RAMP Level 2, and provides enterprise controls aligned with SOC 2 concepts and role-based access. Answers inherit source permissions.

Does it work in the tools employees already use?
Glean connects with Microsoft 365/Teams, Google Workspace, Slack, ServiceNow and others—and now integrates with Microsoft Agent 365 so users can query securely inside Microsoft apps.

What HR outcomes should we expect?
Faster onboarding, fewer repeat questions, higher self-service confidence, and more time for strategic work—backed by HR-specific best-practice guides from Glean.