How to harvest work knowledge

6 Dec 11
All staff learn as they do their jobs, building up individual mines of useful information. But sometimes it stays inside them instead of being shared more widely – and they take it with them when they leave the organisation. Ann McFadyen explains how to help everyone have those lightbulb moments
By Ann McFadyen |1 December 2011

All staff learn as they do their jobs, building up individual mines of useful information. But sometimes it stays inside them instead of being shared more widely – and they take it with them when they leave the organisation. Ann McFadyen explains how to help everyone have those lightbulb moments

Illustration: Mark Smith

Every employer, whether big or small, needs to know how to make the most of the organisational knowledge their workforce holds. This is known as knowledge management and is particularly important in these current times of staff losses.

Knowledge management is defined as ‘the effort related to the capture and maintenance of institutional knowledge’.  It can be seen as mainly an IT matter but this is too limited a view – IT tools do not in themselves provide a comprehensive solution to a decreasing employment base.

Leaders should ensure that any important and useful work knowledge gained by individuals is shared more widely to ensure it doesn’t go with them when they change jobs, are promoted or leave the organisation.

Here are ten things you can do to convert intrinsic knowledge that might reside in the minds of a few individuals into extrinsic, explicit knowledge that can be shared and passed on to fellow employees and customers.
1. Don’t leave it up to the IT department
Knowledge management is a popular concept but, like many things, it has tended to come under the wing of the IT department. This means it is often focused on paperless records and IT applications. It is important for organisations to provide a user-friendly central database to prevent knowledge loss but IT tools are not enough. Identification, capture and sharing of important knowledge is far more crucial than the IT processes we put in place to record that knowledge.

2. Begin at the beginning
You will need to develop an approach to knowledge retention. This should begin with a true assessment of what knowledge is at risk and how any loss would affect the organisation. It should include examining how the knowledge could be lost as a result of staff changes, such as through an ageing population, downsizing, outsourcing or through natural wastage and promotion. Once you have a clear picture, you can start to draw up appropriate strategies to prevent this happening.

3. Develop a road map
Start by identifying what you actually have now and what you need now and for the future. Then plan how you can build in internally what you should find externally. You will need to design staff deployment strategies so the knowledge is not lost and to consider the succession and career paths that will keep it relevant and useful.

4. Promote the sharing of knowledge cost-effectively
Even though most knowledge management strategies are relatively cheap, very few public sector organisations use them to retain knowledge. Organisations that do recommend the following: central documentation of all policies and procedures, available to all employees and used as part of an induction pack; regular cross training between departments and across the hierarchy; job shadowing and mentoring; and job swap weeks.

5. Keep staff in the loop
You will need to transform and inform, to raise awareness of the existing and future requirements so people can develop their knowledge. Don’t forget to monitor and reward, ensuring that your performance management processes recognise the knowledge sharing and transfer as well as the outputs of any role.

6. Create internal communities of practice
The use of social media such as Twitter and blogging is a great way of learning and recording but it must also be monitored and stored. Casual and social knowledge should not be considered worthless or time-limited. In fact, people should be rewarded and encouraged to support these mechanisms and sufficient time allowed for individuals to participate.

7. Don’t trash the past
How many times do we criticise people who join organisations and pass comment on how they used to perform their roles in previous employment. We can learn so much from others’ experiences if we spend time listening and learning rather than trying to force people to do things our way. Suggestion boxes seem to have had their day – but maybe tasking individuals with knowledge sharing to improve situations – rather than treating new and imported ideas as a threat – would be a better way of sharing and improving the knowledge.

8. Carry out internal satisfaction surveys
Invite internal department audits – get a fresh pair of eyes to review and comment on departments they receive a service from. While this is more common for such services as IT, when was the last time we reviewed our finance department? Using our knowledge and experience of users of a service is an insight that we all too often do not value as a way of transferring and retaining knowledge.

9. Make the most of exit interviews
People who are leaving the organisation should be asked what knowledge they would wish to impart to their successor or the team at strategic, operational and individual levels. Anecdotes and stories can be used to convey knowledge. Asking questions such as: ‘Who will you most miss when you leave and why?’ can give great insight into people in the organisation with knowledge not previously identified as part of their role.

10. Don’t delay setting up a strategy
All public sector organisations need to adopt proactive approaches to dealing with the issue of knowledge management decline associated with an ageing workforce and with the requirements of the baby-boomer generation employees. A transient workforce means transient knowledge unless we take active steps to retain it.  If knowledge is power, you need to be sure you aren’t left powerless due to foreseeable events.

Ann McFadyen is head of business and product development at CIPFA Business Services

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