When you need to find information about a co-worker, do you turn to your company's intranet or LinkedIn? If you're like most people, you surf over to LinkedIn. In a recent survey, only 38 percent of 814 professionals said their companies' intranets were helpful when they needed information about their co-workers, such as what their roles and skills are. A whopping 58 percent said they could do a better job at work if they could only connect with co-workers with specific skills.

The information LinkedIn users add to their profiles often is more up-to-date and comprehensive than what you find on the company intranet. To make it easier for employees to connect with their co-workers, LinkedIn recently launched a new app called Lookup. It allows you to search for co-workers on LinkedIn using their name, title, experience, education, or skills.

For example, say you met someone in your company's marketing department, and you know she's the perfect person to answer your question about the new product your team is launching. But … you can't remember her name. You can use Lookup to search for "marketing" and the app will return a list of your co-workers whose titles or skills include marketing. Or, if you want to see if anyone in your company speaks Chinese, type "Chinese" into the search bar and Lookup will find your colleagues whose skills include that language.

The app also allows you to contact your co-workers even if you're not connected on LinkedIn. Send an email to their work addresses from Lookup, or even send them a message in the app, and they'll get an alert on their phones. Even if your colleagues aren't on Lookup, you can still find them and send them a message, which they'll receive in their LinkedIn inbox (it won't count against the number of InMail messages LinkedIn users can get each month).

To learn more or download the app, go to https://business.linkedin.com/lookup.