3.

Knowledge about the new practice is lost through turnover

Treatment

Automating knowledge transfer

Constant staff changes disturb regular employees. That’s a real nightmare for experts
who should transfer their knowledge to newcomers over and over again. This is
reasonable to automate knowledge transfer, for example, an organization can create a
dedicated knowledge center for newcomers to access the working materials prepared
by experts and study them. To check up their knowledge, newcomers can take relevant
tests right in the system. If results are unsatisfactory, the management should schedule
an individual training. This way which reduces experts’ involvement substantially .
And increasingly, firms are using video to document employee expertise—videos are often faster to
create than text, are easier for others to follow along and learn from, and can be recorded with ease
using an employee’s own smartphone or laptop. One fast-growing analytics company found
that video-enabled social knowledge sharing helped its engineering team stay abreast of new product
updates better than had ever been possible with e-mail updates and monthly meetings.

Recognizing employees’ contribution and ensuring personal growth

A knowledge management system can include a system of points attributed to employees
who regularly contribute to the development of organizational knowledge (develop a
particular knowledge domain, organize a community of practice, make research work,
etc.). ‘Knowledge’ points can be included in a personal development plan so that
employees could see their professional advance, as well as into employees’ general rating
for line managers to reward top contributors with relevant incentives.

Give the ability to make their own decisions. “Empower” is such an

overused word in business. But, we still need to give employees the ability to
make their own decisions and be responsible for their outcome. Surveys show
that employees that are able to have control over their daily environment have
a higher level of job satisfaction and stay longer. organizations should seek to create
what we call a “culture of teaching”—setting the expectation that employees will document and share
their expertise. Many organizations make this a part of the learning process itself, asking that each
time an employee creates a new process, establishes a more efficient workflow, or otherwise
discovers some knowledge that would be useful to others, that he or she makes an effort to preserve
that information so that it will be easily accessible for coworkers.

old habits are imported with recruits from less dynamic organizations
The key to success, therefore, was for employees to adapt to their new surroundings by accepting
new ways of doing things and shedding their old, ineffective habits, all something that can be
encouraged through good first line management, training, coaching and mentoring.
They need to be sensitive to the context of their new organisation and be willing and able to adapt to
their new surroundings, even if that means unlearning techniques or ways of doing things they have
developed in prior jobs," she added.
As for employers, what was needed was probably to rethink how they socialised and trained new
employees, and how much of a premium they were willing to pay for prior experience, she
suggested.
"Managers tend to assume that employees with previous experience don't need as much guidance and
hand-holding as inexperienced workers," pointed out Wilk.
"But experienced workers may actually need more help, because they have to shake off the
ineffective habits from old jobs and learn how to best serve their new employer," she added.

You recommend continually making changes, even when things seem to be going well. Isn’t that hard to
explain to employees?
A. It can be, but what’s the alternative? Most companies wait until something isn’t working anymore, and then rush
to change it. But by that time, the business is usually in so much trouble that change is much harder than it would
have been ahead of time.
Eventually, everything becomes obsolete—products, markets, strategies, technology. So the capability to manage
change is a critical skill for leaders now, and it is a case of “use it or lose it.” You build it by using it.
If you tell employees why you are making a change, and why you see the need to be proactive about it, it may be
hard for them to initially accept it.
But it gets easier. As change becomes part of the company culture, people get accustomed to it, and especially to
reevaluating everything the company does.
In most organizations, a frequently overlooked source of innovation comes down to three golden rules: Take a hard
look at everything you do, figure out what doesn’t work anymore, and then stop doing it.