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How Knowledge Management Can Boost Productivity?

December 21, 2020

Files, memos, manuals, guidelines, onboarding lists, CRM data...

Businesses operate a vast amount of knowledge to survive and thrive in a competitive environment. If properly harnessed, knowledge can boost the productivity of entire companies.

That’s why companies are investing in knowledge management systems – the tools that make it easier to share, access, and update information and knowledge within an organization.

In this post, we’ll talk about how these five knowledge management examples can boost organizational productivity:

  • Document management systems
  • Cross-training programs
  • Content management systems (CMS)
  • Chatbots
  • Social networking tools.

Let’s begin.

1. Document Management Systems and Productivity

Knowledge manager role: Organize and promote the use of systems like Google Docs and Notion

These days, every company uses document management systems like Google Docs or Notion. People create presentations, spreadsheets, guidelines, and text documents to share information within a company and store valuable knowledge.

Google Docs, in particular, is super popular.

It’s easy, simple, and free - anyone can use the suite to create documents, share them, control access permissions, and download files. With this document management system, a company can store information in one place, safely, and access it at any time.

Another advantage is that Google Docs’s cloud-based system reduces the need for a centralized organizational data repository and allows collaboration. These features help employees to be productive and achieve more, faster.

One more popular option is Notion. Companies use this system as a go-to source for company information like policies, marketing strategies, HR information, employment terms, and many other useful data.

2. Cross-Training Programs and Productivity

Knowledge manager role: Improve employee skills by implementing cross-training programs and initiatives

Every company has training and onboarding programs to allow new employees to gain knowledge by working with experienced employees. Cross-training programs, on the other hand, are for employees to expand their skill set.

In the hotel industry, for example, employees learn how to work different jobs in a hotel or restaurant. Someone working at the reception can explore new roles for delivering service to guests, both online and offline.

The positive effect on productivity can be significant. Employees who participate in training expand their skill sets and can serve customers better. That’s why cross-training is an effective knowledge management approach to increase employee productivity.

Executives value the importance of cross-training as a way to improve employee productivity and interconnected operations.

“While it’s natural for all of our team members to have areas of focus....  all of the pieces of an operation are connected—which makes cross-training critical,” Hotel Business magazine quoted Kevin Lillis, the CEO of Hospitality Alliance, as saying.

3. Content Management Systems (CMS) and Productivity

Knowledge manager role: Promote and lead the use of CMS/prepare customer knowledge base for sharing

Companies use CMSs like WordPress to manage, store, and monitor content projects from beginning to publication. They make it easier for marketing teams to collaborate on and track the performance of content projects.

Why is that important?

Content marketing is a cost-effective way for online businesses to connect with customers and promote their products and services. More than 91 percent of companies use content to achieve their marketing goals – and they need to track a wide range of KPIs.

That’s where CMS comes in.

This tool helps to:

  • Manage website content
  • Create, store, and publish blog content
  • Manage product pages and landing pages
  • Increase a site’s visibility on Google
  • Keep websites secure with built-in plugins
  • Collaborate on content marketing projects in one place
  • Analyze the performance of content.

A CMS is essentially a database of content-related information and knowledge that a business possesses. Thanks to the tool, businesses can organize their content marketing effort, monitor their performance, and be more productive.

4. Chatbots and Productivity

Knowledge manager role: Promote conversational knowledge sharing via chatbots with employees and customers

A chatbot is an app that simulates a conversation with a human online. When a user asks a chatbot a question, it uses algorithms or pre-determined answers to provide a reply in seconds.

Knowledge managers recognize that chatbots are an innovative way to collect, store, and share information with both employees and customers. Here’s how they can help.

Businesses create chatbots to automate internal knowledge sharing by:

  • Sharing information about the company policies and procedures with employees
  • Answering the most common onboarding and questions.

Using chatbots for marketing purposes is also becoming common.

Website chatbots perform customer surveys, share lead magnets, generate information for a marketing research paper or report, answer customer support questions, and connect visitors with service agents.

As with many other innovative knowledge management initiatives, managers need to secure buy-in from company leaders to start developing chatbots. That’s why they need effective communication tools to promote new projects to any stakeholder.

5. Social Networking Tools and Productivity

Knowledge manager role: Facilitate the use of social networking tools and manage shared knowledge bases

Almost every company today uses a private social networking tool like Slack. Certified knowledge managers are among those promoting and managing this innovation.

The most important benefit of networking tools for productivity is the fact that they bring people, technologies, and processes together. An organization becomes an interconnected community where any piece of information or knowledge can be shared in seconds.

The role of communities in knowledge management is profound. Not only collaboration and information sharing become easier, but knowledge storage, too. Since private social networking tools store all historical conversations, anyone in the company can access previously shared files or conversations.

Knowledge Management and Company Productivity: Summary

The role of knowledge managers in promoting and maintaining high performance standards is significant. By using these five approaches, for example, they enable cooperation and increase engagement within an organization – a must for effective knowledge sharing, innovation, and digital transformation.

Throughout the process, the managers also play a deciding role in ensuring that knowledge management is tailored to employees’ needs and challenges. The success of this project means increased collaboration and engagement, which ultimately leads to higher overall productivity.

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BIO:

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Capturing Knowledge for Organizational Development

December 8, 2020

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The effective knowledge harvesting, utilization, and sharing are pivotal to competitive advantage for any organization. As Sir Francis Bacon quoted “knowledge is power”. The channeled knowledge through the Knowledge Management (KM) system helps bridge the skills gap, allowing people to make better decisions and provide efficient and productive results, ultimately leading to time and costs savings.   

Knowledge can be broadly divided into two categories: explicit and tacit.  explicit knowledge can be easily codified and retained by the organization via manuals, documents, eLearning courses, etc. However, tacit or intangible knowledge that comes with people’s experiences and expertise can only be retained and channelized as explicit knowledge via the network of KM communities. This knowledge leads to better decisions and outcomes benefitting not only the people but the organization as a whole.

Below given are some of the most effective knowledge management practices to capture tacit knowledge and setting KM framework in any organization.

1. New Joiner program – A highly effective means of getting a new team member up to speed in a team is the new joiner program. This initiation process includes providing playbook, resource guide, manuals of common tools, processes, procedures, important contacts, etc. for effective knowledge transfer to the new joiner.

2. Exit Program – When an employee leaves the organization or team, he or she takes away all the tacit knowledge. It is vital to have in place a robust exit interview process ensuring the capturing of all the relevant learnings from the employee: including key job responsibilities, location of documented processes, positive and negative experiences, key contacts, etc. This knowledge should be wisely used for the on-boarding of new employees ultimately leading to over organizational development.

3. Sharing Best Practices - In layman terms, “best practices” is a technique that through experience produces better and tangible results compared to other tried methods. Capturing and sharing of best practices should be a critical component while setting up the KM framework to get the maximum possible benefits of shared experiences and knowledge.

4. Setting up Knowledge Repositories – Setting up a knowledge base and SME directory that can be easily accessed by all employees for best practices, thought leaderships, processes, and procedures can be an extremely effective cost and time-saving tool leading to greater productivity.

5. Collaboration and Communities – Collaboration and KM Communities are the building blocks of a KM framework. Collaboration allows people to connect with the other practitioners to share information, best practices, and breakthrough ideas for Innovation. Collaboration can be facilitated effectively using social network tools used in your organization, be it chat, blogs, wikis, live stream, panel discussion, audio/video conferencing. These powerful technologies are highly effective to promote collaboration in scenarios where the audience is globally dispersed or works virtually. Communities are a platform that can be used to capture the tacit knowledge shared by the collaborators into explicit knowledge that can be then accessed by employees globally.

6. Metrics Analysis – To measure the impact of the KM framework, measuring KM activities via metrics is of critical importance. The direct impact of KM on productivity, operational efficiency, cost reduction can be achieved by analysis of ROI metrics. The regular analysis of KM tools and initiatives can be also critical while upgrading the KM framework.

The purpose of the KM efforts is to make accessible the right knowledge to the right person at the right time. The above-mentioned practices are not exhaustive and certainly vary depending on your organization’s goals and priorities, however, they form the basis of effective KM.

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The Role of Communities in Knowledge Management

December 2, 2020

Communities are an integral part of knowledge management in any organization bringing together people, processes, and technologies to capture, manage, find, and share knowledge. The purpose is to enable the community members to collaborate, get upskilled, making their day to day work easier and how.

Here are some of the key outcomes from well-driven Communities:

1 - Increased output:
Well run communities enable people to spend less time looking for information or recreating already existing information.

2 - Innovation:
Communities lead to increased collaboration and exchanging of ideas driving Innovation in the organization.

3 - Enhanced client value:
Communities enable employees to stay updated on the latest trend and technologies helping them to build and apply new skills to drive client value impact.

4 - Harvesting Content:
Communities play a key role in harvesting content from its members and enable the members to leverage existing assets and resources in ongoing projects.

Well driven and moderated Communities can be a key differentiator of how your workforce can expand into the next wave of innovation leading to better selling and delivering.

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Five Things that Content Management and an Orchestra Performance Have in Common

December 1, 2020

Imagine that you are in a theater listening to an orchestra. Do you notice that all the musicians refer to the same set of music sheets to ensure that they play their instruments in sync? Just like an orchestra performance, organizations also require aligning various components so that there is a harmonious content management performance. This blog describes the elements that they both have in common.  

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KM ROI - A Look Inside an IT Company's KM Investment and Return

November 3, 2020

Investment and returns from Knowledge Management

The returns on investment in KM reflects in many areas of engagement of an organization. Since in most cases it is not tangible, management assumes that there are no benefits and hence brings down its focus on management of knowledge.

Sharing an example of possible returns from KM. This was prepared for an IT Service company with around 1000 employees. I am sharing the returns first and then the investments involved. Only knowledge and information reuse based benefits are covered here.

Click on Graph for full view...

 

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