This learning is paramount for the healthy growth of every organization, as passing critical knowledge from employees to their replacements can prevent organizational “forgetting”. If the turnover in your company is high, you risk knowing less today than you did yesterday.
A knowledge-sharing example
We asked Michael Weiss, co-founder of a multi-awarded company, C-4 Analytics, how his organization encourages employees to share their knowledge:
“Collaboration has to be baked into the corporate culture. The first step in that is removing yourself, as founder, president, CEO, etc., from the decision-making process. Give staff the autonomy to learn, recognize who has the ability to solve problems, then send people to that person so that they get in the habit of working with each other to achieve goals, rather than running to the C Suite whenever they have a question.
The second step is to formalize recognition of achievements. Each of our teams selects their best work each month and shares it with the company, either through our Intranet or at company meetings. We also single out people who have received specialized training, mastered a particular online platform or achieved exceptional results for a client. By acknowledging these individual success stories, we let employees know who to go to when they want advice or strategies.”
The Four-Process View
A knowledge-management system is also a great way to organize and locate necessary content for employees to address specific business tasks and projects. It’s important to remember, though, that knowledge management is a concept and not a technology. Jeetu Patel and Jeff Angus came up with a four-process framework of knowledge management, which was published first in Information Week. A good knowledge management system should integrate this process and produce a knowledge map – something standard LMS platforms don’t offer – and report by analyzing connections between content, people, and activity.
Webanywhere have identified a big gap in the market of knowledge-management tools and created Promatum, an easy-to-use platform that integrates the four-process view shown above. What makes Promatum different is the course-creation functionality, which allows users to design engaging content directly within the platform.
Promatum provides smart packages for all sizes of business, so get in touch if you’d like to see a free demo or to learn more.