A lot of companies talk about knowledge management(KM) these days. But what exactly does that mean? Most commonly, KM refers to systems and processes to collect and store an organization’s knowledge in one centralized location to be easily shared, found, and accessed by others within the company. This makes it easier to keep employees up-to-date with the information they need, no matter where they are or what role they play at the company.
The Challenges That Businesses Face
Companies’ biggest challenge is getting their employees to act on what they’ve learned. It takes time, patience, and effort to create a knowledge-sharing culture within your company; if you are truly committed to its success, you must be willing to invest in people’s needs and their personal development. Additionally, you need to allow workers some flexibility to engage with new information effectively.
The Solution – Knowledge Management
A program captures relevant information, organizes it, and makes it available to people in your organization who need it. So what do you get from a KM solution? Better employee engagement and retention, higher productivity, and reduced turnover. The result is a workforce that’s fully engaged and completely on board with your business goals.
How Does KM Work for Me?
In short, it helps you get value from your organization’s information. Why is it important? Because every company—small or large—stores an incredible amount of data, including employee knowledge, product specs, and documents.
Types of KM Tools:
• A dashboard or knowledge portal is a central location where users can find and access all their documents, including various types of information. This software makes it easy to access previous conversations, links, and related content you’ve saved from elsewhere on your computer. (InnerWorkings)
• Social media tools such as Slack can help facilitate collaboration in a virtual environment.
• Another type of online tool is a database or knowledge repository, which allows for centralized access to information. (Adobe)
• The third type of KM tool is a knowledge base. This kind of application provides internal users with self-service tools that help them find answers and reach conclusions independently. (IBM)
• Live chat software, such as LiveChat and Drift, offer fast and flexible responses via instant messaging while addressing specific customer inquiries
• Verint knowledge management solutions combine an engagement platform and analytics engine to help organizations make sense of their data and understand what’s driving employee engagement across their organization.
By analyzing and visualizing performance, personal characteristics, goals, values, and competencies, our solution helps you discover what drives employee behavior, making it easier for you to create targeted programs that will drive business outcomes. You can also optimize your talent management strategy based on up-to-date data rather than relying on outdated surveys.
KM in Education
KM can be a part of every department in an organization, from marketing to engineering. With so many possibilities for KM in today’s schools, teachers can plan activities based on their students’ needs rather than just a one-size-fits-all curriculum. From enhancing courses with online tools to harnessing group projects and class discussion boards, there is never a shortage of ways KM can assist schools.
KM is not a computer system or software solution, but rather a way of managing information within an organization. Knowing how knowledge fits into your organization’s strategy and business goals is important to understand it better.
