knowledge sharing
1 Knowledge Sharing Shop
2 обмен знаниями
3 Web-сервер SAP Knowledge Provider
4 кардшаринг англ. card sharing — карта и общий доступ, дословно — общий доступ к карте — это метод, благодаря которому несколько независимых ресиверов могут получить доступ к просмотру платных каналов спутн
5 KNOWLEDGE
6 foreign knowledge
7 prior knowledge
8 (Exploration Development and Production Sharing Agreement) соглашение о разведке, разработке и разделе продукции
9 ADW Knowledge Ware setup Information File
10 Accelerated Knowledge For Canines
11 Access Stored Knowledge via Symbolic Access Method
12 Acquisition Reform Model Sharing
13 Activity, Skills, Knowledge
14 Adults Seeking Knowledge
15 Advancing Self Knowledge
16 Air Force job knowledge test
17 Aladdin Knowledge Systems, LTD.
18 Alaska Native Knowledge Network
19 Applied Research Knowledge
20 Army Knowledge Network
См. также в других словарях:
Knowledge sharing — is an activity through which knowledge (i.e. information, skills, or expertise) is exchanged among people, friends, or members of a family, a community (e.g. Wikipedia) or an organization. Organizations have recognized that knowledge constitutes… … Wikipedia
Knowledge Sharing Effort — The Knowledge Sharing Effort (KSE) was initiated in 1990 by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, an agency of the United States Department of Defense. It involved the participation of dozens of researchers from both academia and… … Wikipedia
Knowledge management — (KM) comprises a range of strategies and practices used in an organization to identify, create, represent, distribute, and enable adoption of insights and experiences. Such insights and experiences comprise knowledge, either embodied in… … Wikipedia
Knowledge Management — (KM) comprises a range of practices used by organisations to identify, create, represent, distribute and enable adoption of what it knows, and how it knows it. It has been an established discipline since 1995 [Stankosky, 2005] with a body of… … Wikipedia
Knowledge transfer — in the fields of organizational development and organizational learning is the practical problem of transferring knowledge from one part of the organization to another (or all other) parts of the organization. Like Knowledge Management, Knowledge … Wikipedia
Knowledge worker — Knowledge workers in today s workforce are individuals who are valued for their ability to act and communicate with knowledge within a specific subject area. They will often advance the overall understanding of that subject through focused… … Wikipedia
Knowledge entrepreneurship — describes the ability to recognize or create an opportunity and take action aimed at realizing the innovative knowledge practice or product. Knowledge entrepreneurship is different from ‘traditional’ economic entrepreneurship in that it does not… … Wikipedia
Knowledge-based engineering — (KBE) is a discipline with roots in computer aided design (CAD) and knowledge based systems but has several definitions and roles depending upon the context. An early role was support tool for a design engineer generally within the context of… … Wikipedia
Knowledge Query And Manipulation Language — KQML ou le Knowledge Query and Manipulation Language est un langage de haut niveau de communication entre agents. Il se base sur la théorie des actes de langage. KQML est indépendant de la syntaxe et de l’ontologie des messages, du mécanisme de… … Wikipédia en Français
Knowledge query and manipulation language — KQML ou le Knowledge Query and Manipulation Language est un langage de haut niveau de communication entre agents. Il se base sur la théorie des actes de langage. KQML est indépendant de la syntaxe et de l’ontologie des messages, du mécanisme de… … Wikipédia en Français
Knowledge organization — NOTE: This page must be disambiguated. In some places, knowledge organization refers to an actual organization, that is a management company or institution. At other times, it refers to the act of organizing knowledge. The later concept,… … Wikipedia
3 ways to use knowledge sharing to boost business and morale
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The first day of a new job, team, or project is a whirlwind of tiny details. Every question answered spawns three more, and everyone else just seems to know everything. Long-time employees – you’re not immune either. You can be at a company for years and still, with every big change, feel like a stranger in a strange land all over again.
When an organization has a habit of keeping its information tucked away and buried in shared drives, written docs, or human brains, this not-knowing is unavoidable whether you’re a newbie or a veteran. A culture full of walls slows down projects, forces employees into frequent and frustrating searches for knowledge, and eats up the time of experts who have to answer the same questions over and over and over.
Without a way to store and access the information they need, employees end up stumbling around in the dark. In a survey for the American Management Association, 36 percent of workers said that they “hardly ever” know what’s going on in their companies. Fifty-five percent said they only know what’s going on “some of the time.”
As Kim Wall, Atlassian team lead for technical account management, puts it, “You might find old data or old knowledge that’s not useful anymore,” she explained. “You might not find the answers that you’re looking for at all. Even though they live there, you may not find them.”
Essentially, having a bunch of locked vaults of knowledge throughout the company wastes a lot of time – and (cliché alert) time is money.
What is knowledge sharing?
Not to be basic, but we should probably define knowledge sharing before we get into the details of why it’s a good thing. Knowledge sharing is the exchange of information or understanding between people, teams, communities, or organizations. It’s a proactive and intentional act that expands the number of entities in the know while also creating or building upon an accessible archive of knowledge for others.
If you’re writing a book or manual, presenting your research, mentoring, or just having an informal chat with your team, you’re sharing knowledge. Knowledge sharing helps workers and businesses be more agile, adaptable, and better able pivot and ensure ongoing growth and survival.
3 bad habits that hinder knowledge sharing (and the fixes)
As with most deepset habits, people working within a closed off culture may have some trouble letting go of their best-kept secrets. Watch out for these behaviors that might bring knowledge sharing to a screeching halt – and proactively model the vibes you want to see instead.
Habit: Hoarding
The harm: Knowledge is power, and power is job security. Employees who want to feel they’re indispensable may keep what they know hidden to make themselves seem irreplaceable. Some may be driven by competition, worried about someone else getting the credit they believe they deserve.
The fix: Give kudos. If you regularly recognize and promote everyone’s hard work, you’ll show them as experts in their arena and dull their need to fight for status on their own. They’ll also feel less threatened if they know the company sees them as valuable mentors for new workers or folks on other teams.
Habit: Favoritism
The harm: Who are the most celebrated? Who leads most discussions? An organization built around “rock stars” discourages others from opening up.
The fix: Spread the love. Recognize that there are likely members of your team who hold vast knowledge, but they aren’t the most vocal or are in roles that don’t call for lots of exposure. Yet, they could be your company’s best leaders. Help them boost their PR by directly asking for their thoughts or to take the lead on a project – an opportunity to share what they know.
Habit: Reliance on the go-tos
The harm: Do you ever say, “I don’t know what we’d do without so-and-so”? That’s a problem. While So-and-so may be proud to be the company’s walking wiki, it’s a burden to have to answer the same questions constantly. These interruptions make your expert less capable of doing great work, and if they decide to walk, all that knowledge goes with them.
The fix: Build your bench. Some companies make it part of everyone’s job to mentor another employee, and even go so far as to tie salary increases and promotions to passing on knowledge. This way, more than just one brain knows how you do as a team or organization. Creating a program like this may be a big cultural shift – and could be too much at once. You may start with interviewing and documenting what your go-to experts know. (We’ll tell you how in a bit.)
If you build it, they will contribute
For this and so many other good reasons, knowledge-sharing systems are a crucial tool in keeping your entire organization in the loop. When people share what they know, your organization will collect all kinds of useful content. This knowledge-sharing system will soon be jam-packed with everything from FAQs and product troubleshooting tips, to high-level documents about the company’s goals and mission.
With total transparency, teams are able to find and communicate relevant information easily. Not only does it connect the right people with the right content, it cultivates a company culture that shares wins, losses, and lessons. By shining a light on mistakes or disappointments – product launches that didn’t take or reasons why your company’s customers are choosing the competition – all employees benefit.
Some knowledge on types of knowledge
Now that you’ve gotten real with the state of the state of your company’s openness, understand the different types of knowledge you will want to capture. By placing these insights into separate buckets, you’ll have a better sense of how to capture them. (We’ll tell you how to get started too.)
Tacit knowledge. It’s one thing to be told that a stove is hot and quite another to get that lesson while running to the ER after placing your hand on it. Some things you just have to figure out by doing – that’s tacit knowledge. Think about how much we pick up just going about our day-to-day jobs. It’s the most valuable information for businesses and the toughest to pin down. You don’t know what you don’t know until you need to know.
Capture it: Harnessing all the business-driving stuff inside the heads of your employees is hard, and not a perfect science. But there’s hope. You can recruit an interviewer who can ask the deep-dive questions of your veteran employees, document their answers, and store them in a best practices hub within your knowledge-sharing system.
That was a lot of words. Here’s how this might play out. Vernon is one of your top support reps who has been solving issues for your customers for several years. He always gets five-star ratings no matter how dire the reason your customers call in. How is he doing this?
Have an interviewer sit with Vernon to learn what is beyond the talking points or trouble-shooting guide. What are the special things that Vernon is doing to please callers? Throw him some scenarios and see what he comes up with. Gather up his answers and share them broadly in your knowledge-sharing system, social intranet, or internal wiki and encourage everyone to use it so we don’t all lose it. (Bonus: Vernon will feel incredible and may be more proactive with sharing his approaches in the future and/or encourage others to do so too.)
Here’s one way we gather tacit knowledge at Atlassian. “We have something that we like to call conversation guides,” explains Wall. “We’ll sit on a call with the person who just knows this stuff to their bones and write down every single thing that that person asked the customer, every single phrase, and all of the concepts. Then we try to formulate it into something that other people can use, so that they get that base level of knowledge without having had to live in those shoes for 15 years.”
Explicit knowledge. Also known as “codified knowledge,” this is information that has moved out of the brain and into written or audio form. It’s now available for mass access and consumption. It’s the stuff you likely already have ready to go, such as the employee handbook, whether we work the day after New Year’s, and how the heck to get that printer to stop jamming.
Capture it: Good job on preserving these important assets in some documented form. Now make sure they’re findable and current, so that they deliver long-term value. You can’t really blame the events team for ordering 500 company t-shirts with the old logo if that’s what they found in your files.
Skip the shared drives (which can be a document black hole) and bring on a solution that makes updating and sharing knowledge easy and fast. Tools like Confluence, an open platform for creating, sharing, commenting on, and archiving all content, can help.
Implicit knowledge. These are the unwritten how-to’s of the office that originate in the processes and routines of the everyday. These tidbits turbocharge you into getting things done smoothly and efficiently – and appropriately within your company’s culture. “It lives in how you run the business,” says Wall. “It’s what everyone knows.”
It’s the difference between creating a project plan in Google Slides when the culture prefers using Trello boards. It shows newcomers how to be as they ramp up on their work function and saves them from having to ask questions like whether it’s ok to Slack the boss after 5 or if anyone minds if you turn off your camera during video conference calls.
Capture it: This one is a toughy since a lot of the “how we do” details stem from living and breathing the company culture and infusing it every email, project, and presentation. Your mission and vision statement can serve as high-level guidelines of what everyone should put first in their day-to-day interactions. You also want to grab and share specific ways of working that trip people up.
One way to do this is to survey your employees asking “What about the way our teams work did you wish you knew on day one?” and gather feedback. Then consolidate the answers into best practices docs that you can then share broadly to new hires as well as current employees.
Now that you know what you know about knowledge-sharing
Knowledge sharing isn’t a one and done; it needs to be embedded into the fiber of your company so that valuable information doesn’t vaporize, become locked in silos, or disappear when a veteran moves on to their next adventure.
You might think that you’re all set up to keep business-driving knowledge forever and ever, but take an honest look and see if your organization encourages employees to keep their cards close to their chests. Run through the practices we’ve talked about, but equally important, see how you can model the change you want to see.
Here’s some homework: have thoughts about how to improve the knowledge sharing practices in your company? Share them (and this article, why not?) with your team right now and kick off the dialogue. Go, go!
Building a Knowledge Sharing Culture
If you had to ask a relevant technical question to a colleague who you had never spoken to, how comfortable would you feel? What about presenting or discussing information with a group of people? What thoughts and feelings would go through your head? Professional communities and companies with strong knowledge sharing cultures can positively influence these kinds of interactions.
What kind of culture do you currently find yourself in?
This article is broken into two parts and focuses on why knowledge sharing in a technical collective is important, and how to facilitate it. Many of the examples come from a web development background, but everything has been generalized to show how it can be useful in many different contexts.
Part 1: Why Share Knowledge?
Knowledge sharing is a powerful tool that can help change the learning culture, and culture as a whole, within any collective of people. At REDspace, we use weekly Tech Shares, internal Slack channels, intermittent Lunch and Learns, small team level presentations, and one-on-one check-ins to present, discuss, and grow as individuals and as a company. This type of culture enables our entire team to stay at the forefront of technologies and trends in order to best serve our clients. Regular knowledge sharing has incredible benefits:
Let’s dive into these benefits and examine the ways in which you can help build a knowledge sharing culture in whatever professional community you work in.
It’s About the Information
At its core, the point of knowledge sharing is to convey information. This is the focus of Tech Share, our weekly knowledge sharing session. We aim to provide a space where developers can present and discuss a wide range of topics. These cover everything from best practices to specific language frameworks. Topics we’ve focused on in the past include:
Promoting Self-Learning
To learn new things on your own you need motivation. Regular knowledge sharing provides a space where people can discuss their interests, generate new ideas, and troubleshoot possible learning paths. Building a knowledge sharing culture also helps those within it to foster a growth mindset. This is the concept that intelligence is not fixed, and by learning you can grow to achieve anything. In any fast paced professional field, having people who believe they can rise to meet any challenge is an important asset to have.
Exposing General Expertise and Unique Skill Sets
Speaking of self-learning, it’s invaluable to know who knows what in a company. People aren’t always open about their secondary skill sets. You might have someone who’s done X forever, so you assume that’s all they know. All the while, they’ve been actively learning and developing their skills in Y. Knowledge sharing provides a space for people to present and discuss topics which cover many different domains. This often reveals skills or interests that generally aren’t talked about, and also reaffirms who your experts are. This is particularly important in a larger company like REDspace. We have many diverse projects, with unique asks, so a wide knowledge base is critical. A community that shares knowledge regularly knows the strengths of those in it and, as a result, can better serve their customers.
Encouraging Question Asking and Open Discussion
Asking a question can be extremely intimidating. What can make it worse is not knowing who to ask or how they will respond. There’s nothing that hinders productivity more than being stuck on a problem without a support network. Knowledge sharing encourages question asking and open discussion by reinforcing it through regularly scheduled and structured events. That’s the primary focus. Actual project tasks have deadlines and pressure. The assumed expectation is often that the knowledge needed to complete the task should already be there, you just have to sit down and get it done. Like any new skill, question asking and discussion must be practiced often in order to feel comfortable. Regular knowledge sharing provides that opportunity and leads to the completion of projects as teams and not singular units.
Part 2: How do I do it?
Enough with the why it’s so important. Though no doubt the above points will be helpful to you if you ever end up trying to create or grow knowledge sharing practices in your own professional collective. Below are some actionable steps you can take to make this happen.
It Grows From the Top Down
Typically companies don’t let you take as much time out of your day as you want to learn about and discuss cool things. If your current workspace contributes little or no time to knowledge sharing and self-learning, the best way to get started is by seeking support from higher up. Role models are critical to building a knowledge sharing culture. If senior employees aren’t engaged in it, then why would the people they manage and mentor be? It could be as simple as asking for a small amount of time each month to meet with some fellow co-workers to present or discuss important topics or concepts in your field. What you do needs to provide value for it to appear viable, so ensure that you keep track of what was discussed and how it benefited the group. In general:
The goal is that by engaging and gaining the buy in of senior employees, you maximize your chances of establishing a culture and sustaining it.
Start Small
It might take some time for things to get going so start small and build where you can. If you’re having trouble getting buy-in or getting allotted work time, then try organizing something at lunch or after work. It can be quick and simple, but the goal should be the same. Make sure to document any session you participate in and focus on the benefits it had to the group as a whole. Some specific areas to focus on when considering the structure and the impact of a particular method:
You can rate each point using the following scale, as well as adding what could be done differently next time. You could also use your own rating system:
Knowledge Sharing Methods
Below are just a few methods we’ve used, as well as some others which could be useful in different contexts:
Short Share
Tech Share
Lunch and Learn
Knowledge Sharing Forum
Pair Programming
Sharing in the Global Community
The community through which you share knowledge doesn’t just have to be those you work with. Much can be gained by practicing these same methods with people from other groups both online and offline. The Well Red blog is one of our ways of connecting with the external community. We’ll learn, explore, present, discuss, and question information relevant to our field with the hope of helping and inspiring others who share the same passion as us.
Whether you’re an entry level employee or the president of a company, there is always something you can do to help grow the knowledge sharing culture within your current professional collective. Start small, choose interesting and relevant topics, document the value, seek the buy-in of senior employees, and continue to attempt new things! Given a bit of time and effort, you’ll start to see the change from an open and active knowledge sharing culture.
How to Encourage Knowledge Sharing in the Workplace
Discover the key steps your organization needs to take to encourage knowledge sharing in the workplace and the benefits of doing so.
Written by: David Oragui
Knowledge sharing is the process of sharing organizational knowledge (both tacit as well as explicit) with other members within your company.
Why does this matter?
Because, the collective knowledge possessed by all the members within your organization is one of your company’s most valuable assets.
It’s what enables your individual employees to do their job well.
It’s what ensures your overall operations run smoothly and effectively.
It also provides your business with a competitive edge.
Overall, it’s what separates your business from other businesses — and what allows you to provide value to your customers in the way you do.
Of course, your team’s collective knowledge can only become collective if your employees actively and consistently share it with one another.
(Source)
In this article, we’ll be looking at the key things you’ll need to do to encourage knowledge sharing in the workplace, and eventually make it second nature for your employees. But first, let’s take a look at the benefits of having your employee share their knowledge as well as some of the barriers that might be preventing them from doing so.
The Importance of Knowledge Sharing
Investing in the facilitation of knowledge sharing is a commitment. The free and consistent exchange of knowledge does not occur overnight, nor does it begin out of the blue. It takes concerted effort and intentionality.
The work is well worth the reward, though. There are innumerable benefits to knowledge sharing and ways in which it is vital to your team’s success.
Improves Organizational Alignment
While retaining individuality is integral to a diverse, happy workforce, it’s important that employees are aligned with your company’s mission and overall goals. Having your employees aligned with your goals, mission, and values help to create cohesion and boost engagement at work.
Without knowledge sharing, organization alignment simply cannot be reached. Employees must be on the same page always, and the only way for that to happen is for knowledge to be shared on a consistent basis. This keeps everyone informed, in tune with company-wide values, and so on. It also keeps everyone focused on the current project or goal.
Increases Productivity
By making knowledge easily accessible and found, your employees can spend more time focusing on their work as opposed to trying to find the information they need to do their job. Not only that, but by improving the sharing of knowledge, you make it much easier to keep all employees informed at all times. In turn, your employees can be more effective and efficient at their jobs, which leads to improved productivity.
Enhances Knowledge Retention
The retention of information on an individual level is vital to the performance of that individual. However, when working in a team environment, everyone must have the same knowledge. A single mistake can lead to team-wide setbacks and reduced performance.
To ensure this does not happen, the entire team needs to retain pertinent information. Effective knowledge sharing facilitates this retention, enhancing performance across the company as a whole.
Thankfully, one informs the other. If all individual employees understand and retain the knowledge they need to perform at their best, the team members will be properly equipped to function as a unit.
As this knowledge is shared, it permeated the entire company. This is essential beyond daily functions and long-term projects. It facilitates the retention of company knowledge even if you lose an integral employee. Because they participated in knowledge sharing, their individual knowledge persists within the organization.
Ongoing Professional Development
Continual development of your employees through collaboration and learning boosts the skill level of the individual and the effectiveness of the team. Through knowledge sharing, professional development can occur consistently and indefinitely.
As these collaborative improvements lead to better ideas and information, your company structure will grow, as well. Through the development of professionals and accompanying addition of knowledge, your company will create a more comprehensive and engaging environment that will benefit employees in the future. It is a positive cycle that continues so long as knowledge sharing is fostered.
Helps Your Company Save Money
You can save money by reducing duplicate efforts as well as reducing the amount of time that employees spend searching for information. For example, when Intel was trying to improve the performance of one of its products, the company discovered that 60% of problems it was encountering had already been solved by a previous team.
Increases Job Satisfaction and Employee Retention
While knowledge retention is exceptionally effective in creating a cohesive workforce, it also encourages employees to be more autonomous by empowering them to perform with confidence.
When autonomy is achieved, employees are more satisfied with their jobs, more likely to take control of their daily operations, and placed solidly in control of their career development. When these factors coalesce, there is an increased likelihood that employees will stick with your company for the foreseeable future.
Barriers to Knowledge Sharing
There is no shortage of evidence that knowledge sharing is integral to a healthy and successful work environment. Encouraging knowledge sharing and implementing policies that facilitate it are necessary to foster such an environment and elevate your company culture.
However, with great potential come significant barriers that must be overcome. In order to develop a plan for creating the knowledge-sharing network you envision, you must first understand the barriers between those plans and reality.
Knowledge Silos
While the term knowledge (or information) silo may prompt fascinating mental pictures and remind you of the classic farm landscape present across middle America, the reality is far removed from these idyllic scenes. Siloing of knowledge or information is a significant threat to your organization.
So, what are these information silos, and why are they so damaging?
Imagine you are back in high school. Everyone gravitates to their own distinct cliques. Within those cliques, things are good—people get along, they work well together, and it is mostly smooth sailing. When forced to work together, however, the various social groups are almost entirely incompatible.
The same dynamic can exist within a company. Instead of football players, art students, metalheads, and so forth, though, you have the various departments within your organization. Each of these departments has its own culture, knowledge, and mentality. When you try to blend the departments—a necessity when it comes to knowledge sharing—the friction is obvious, and productivity grinds to a halt.
Of course, this isolationist mentality is almost never intentional. Instead, it occurs naturally as the departments focus on their unique goals, and communication with other departments takes a backseat. Because knowledge silos are naturally occurring, it is even more important to take intentional steps to counteract them.
Knowledge Hoarding
While knowledge silos typically form unintentionally, knowledge hoarding is the complete opposite. This barrier to knowledge sharing occurs when employees within your organization purposely do not share critical information.
This may sound like a rare or unusual occurrence, but the truth is that this is a relatively normal phenomenon that many companies encounter. As such, it is vital to get to the root of why employees are keeping crucial information to themselves.
There are three main reasons why employees tend to knowledge hoard—competition, fear, and leverage. Often, these motivations can be traced back to something within your organizational culture that unintentionally encourages such behavior.
For example, an employee may want to gain an edge over their peers in order to score a personal victory. They may fear a negative reaction to their contribution in the workplace. They may even hold onto information in order to make themselves irreplaceable in their position.
Lack of Opportunity
As remote work grows more common, a new barrier to knowledge sharing has arisen—a severe lack of opportunity due to limited social interaction. Traditionally, employees have had the opportunity to mingle, chat, and exchange information on both a casual and professional basis. From the cliché water fountain forum to the official meeting space, social interaction was ever-present and conducive for sharing.
Now, more and more team members are working from home. By default, this means fewer chance encounters, social interactions, and unabated knowledge sharing. It is not that they are knowledge hoarding or that information silos are popping up at random; rather, it is that they simply do not have the opportunity to freely connect with their peers like they would in a traditional office setting.
How to Encourage Knowledge Sharing in the Workplace
The advantages of encouraging knowledge sharing should be clear. Knowledge sharing is essential to a healthy, successful company in the modern world. The problem is overcoming the barriers we mentioned above which pose some very real challenges to unlocking the full potential of your company and your team.
How, then, do you go about facilitating knowledge sharing and unlocking the full potential of your organization?
Every company is different, and your approach should be tailored to your unique organizational environment. That being said, there are a few easy ways to kickstart knowledge sharing within your workplace.
Build a Culture That Promotes Knowledge Sharing
Unfortunately, almost a third of companies rate their knowledge sharing culture as below 5 out of 10.
This problem is not uncommon, and “Often, we are too slow to recognize how much and in what ways we can assist each other through sharing such expertise and knowledge,” says Barbadian politician Owen Arthur.
So, how do you create a company culture that promotes knowledge sharing?
Thankfully, it is quite simple—though not without a clear goal and a lot of hard work. You must have a clear mission and vision for your company on which to focus, establish a common mindset of growth throughout your organization, and instill a sense of community amongst your employees.
Moreover, it’s important to remember that knowledge sharing is about building relationships and fostering collaboration between people. For example, communities of practice (skill sharing) or communities of excellence (sharing best practices) are a great way to help build a culture of knowledge sharing.
When a culture of sharing knowledge is embraced and becomes integrated into the very DNA of your company, it becomes much easier to get employees to continuously share what they know as it becomes a way of being for your business.
Make it Easy to Share and Preserve Knowledge
Culture is merely a concept unless it is given the tools to be put into action. You can have grand plans for your company, including a vision of a culture built on the free exchange of information, but without the proper resources, these plans will largely remain dreams.
As such, you need to enable your employees to effectively and efficiently share the knowledge they possess. This means providing them with channels, platforms, and spaces that facilitate the sharing of knowledge on a routine basis. By establishing multiple avenues of knowledge sharing, you give employees the flexibility and opportunity to communicate without any roadblocks. In the modern world where remote work is becoming more common, the availability of multiple communication channels is even more essential.
Knowledge sharing should be able to take place both freely and in an organized manner. While your employees should exchange information readily throughout the day, scheduling times to share knowledge via check-ins, weekly meetings, and so on, is a fantastic idea.
Accompanying this communication should be the preservation of the knowledge being shared. Often referred to as knowledge assets, storing information that can be accessed and shared over time is vital to the longevity of a company and the persistence of its knowledge.
Emerging technology takes center stage when it comes to both facilitation and preservation of knowledge sharing. When these tools are implemented on an organizational level, the ease with which information transfer and storage takes place further encouraged employees to embrace knowledge sharing.
Centralize Your Knowledge
Sometimes referred to as creating a single source of truth, centralizing your organization’s accumulated knowledge in a manner that is accessible to all team members at all times—even when knowledge sharing is not taking place in real-time—allows for the unhindered spread of knowledge while ensuring that the knowledge is accurate, well-organized, and up to date.
This is where technology and creating a knowledge sharing system comes into play.
“Knowledge Sharing Systems support the process through which explicit or tacit knowledge is communicated to other individuals. These systems are also referred to as knowledge repositories,” says Sirje Virkus, faculty member at the Institute of Information Studies, Tallinn University.
Here’s a table highlighting the different types of knowledge you might be dealing with:
Knowledge type
Definition
Characteristics
Practical and task-based
Subjective and comes with experience
An example of a knowledge sharing system could be your knowledge base software which can be used to share explicit knowledge such as reference guides and explanatory conceptual articles. You could also use it for sharing tacit knowledge, in video format as well as articles structured as step-by-step tutorials on how to complete a task.
Define Roles
A culture of knowledge sharing thrives when each employee actively participates in it. Every team member, by default, has a role, and that role is to constantly be seeking to both share and received knowledge.
However, there are times where a more intentional, targeted approach must be used to push those efforts forward. Whether it is addressing an area of need or the creation of a specific learning initiative, a need for defined roles within your knowledge-sharing initiatives sometimes arises.
For example, training sessions often require someone in the role of “expert” to share knowledge with “learners.” While this is in line with the overall company culture, it typically involves a more formal setting and defined roles. The same is true of onboarding, during which new hires learn from experienced mentors.
When more intentional knowledge-sharing initiatives are implemented, defined roles are required. This is just one more way to continue and strengthen the knowledge-sharing culture you are striving to establish.
Standardization of Knowledge Sharing Workflows
Facilitating knowledge sharing through diverse channels is key to encouraging the free flow of ideas and information throughout your company. Documentation, delivery, intake, demonstration, and knowledge improvement are all key processes within the broader culture.
If these steps are taken in a disorganized manner, however, the knowledge sharing that does occur is not optimized. To ensure that the efforts of your team do not go to waste, there must be a consistent, strategic approach every time they share knowledge.
Standardizing the processes through which knowledge is shared in the workplace eliminates any discrepancy and ensuing confusion. Every company’s workflow will be unique, but there are a few key guidelines that can inform the creation of your standard operating procedures. You may want to establish the following, as a start.
Keep in mind that, while having standardized processes is important, you should not create a rigid work environment—this serves only to stifle new ideas and discourage free movement of information. Instead, the goal should be to integrate certain guidelines and intentionality into the natural flow of knowledge.
Encourage and Reward Effort
Enabling knowledge sharing is one thing; encouraging employees to actively participate in it is another thing entirely. While many team members will put forth effort based purely on their investment in the company’s culture and a desire to both grow and thrive in their work environment, creating an ecosystem that recognizes, acknowledges, and celebrates knowledge sharing efforts will offer positive reinforcement to some and inspiration to others.
In other words, you want to foster intrinsic motivation by rewarding employees for a job well done. Sometimes, though, extrinsic motivation may also be required. You can incentivize further knowledge sharing and increased effort by offering tangible rewards to those who excel or who strive to better the company’s culture. From small gifts to financial rewards, extrinsic motivation is often a fantastic complement to intrinsic.
Wrapping Up
No matter how you approach knowledge sharing within your company, one thing is certain—success is contingent on your employees as well as the technology you use to effectively and efficiently share knowledge in an optimized manner. Thankfully, there are modern innovations that can help facilitate the ability to share knowledge more fluidly than ever before.
By creating a comprehensive knowledge base with Helpjuice, knowledge sharing on a personal and organizational level is simple, streamlined, and centralized. From recognizing hard work to maximizing the efficiency with which information is shared, stored, and accessed, Helpjuice’s comprehensive approach to knowledge sharing is the ultimate facilitator of the company culture you envision.
