Knowledge is a valuable resource for businesses. However, because it’s not a tangible asset, businesses seldom have a strategy in place to manage knowledge.

With a knowledge management strategy, you can identify, track, manage, and share knowledge across your organization and get more value out of this asset.

What Is Knowledge Management?

Knowledge management is a concept that refers to different methods you can use to create, manage, and share knowledge. Whether you’re creating new resources, updating old ones, or sharing them with new hires, managing your knowledge can support your business goals.

Businesses often possess explicit knowledge that is easy to identify and manage. Explicit knowledge includes best practices you have put in writing, training resources, intellectual property, or a maintenance schedule for a piece of equipment you use.

However, organizations also rely on implicit knowledge. This type of knowledge is more difficult to put in writing. Transmission typically occurs in person, but some implicit knowledge is something that employees gain through years of experience.

Why Does Knowledge Management Matter?

Knowledge represents value for your business. It’s an asset, but unlike more tangible assets, you might not have proper visibility over it.

Your organization relies on the expertise of its employees daily. With the rise of practices like remote work and outsourcing, it’s more important than ever to improve communications and make sure that everyone has access to the knowledge they need to do their job.

Knowledge management is also imperative because there is a skills gap in many industries and new hires often learn how to perform their job during the initial training process. Transmitting knowledge to new hires is more important than ever with record numbers of Baby Boomers retiring.

Knowledge is also a pivotal part of your company culture. If you don’t transmit knowledge to new hires and partners, you could lose what makes your company unique. Knowledge and its transmission are things you should cultivate to preserve your company culture, generate growth and innovation, and deliver a positive experience for customers and employees.

Five Strategies for Adopting Knowledge Management

These strategies will help you adopt a knowledge management system to improve visibility and get more value out of this resource.

Start with a Survey

Go over the knowledge your organization has put in writing by reviewing manuals, policies, best practices, training material, and more.

You should also create a list of the knowledge that is implicit. This list might include processes you haven’t documented yet, as well as things employees have learned to do over the years without receiving explicit training.

Digitalization

Turning knowledge into digital resources improves access. It also ensures that knowledge remains available even if you abandon a traditional workplace model and embrace remote work or outsourcing.

A good strategy is to create a central repository where employees and partners can access all your resources. Search features and directories are a plus because they will help users locate the specific information they’re looking for quickly.

Building a digital library also allows you to work with different formats. You can use videos or audio files to share knowledge that is difficult to put in writing, for instance, by filming how an employee performs a specific task.

A central repository will also allow you to track knowledge more effectively. You’ll be able to identify gaps and ensure everyone has access to the latest versions of the documents you use. Plus, sharing resources is easy since you can send links to employees who need to review a specific piece of information.

Knowledge Management and Culture

A business with a culture that values knowledge and learning is a business that will get more out of knowledge management.

You should review your company culture and core values. Consider adding values like communication, personal and professional growth, or continuous learning.

For example, teach them how to code and automate stuff or enroll them to learn how to speak the Spanish language. These small little details will inspire your employees to do better at work.

Take Action With Some New Projects

Once you have updated your company values, you should look for concrete solutions to make these values a part of your day-to-day operations.

Here are a few examples:

  • You can update job descriptions to let everyone know you expect them to share knowledge with the team. You can also have managers look for this behavior when evaluating performance.
  • Create a directory with a description of everyone’s position and experience. This document will help employees turn to the right person when they need help.
  • Put together a cross-department team so that members can share information across your organization and create digital resources together.
  • Your HR department can play a critical role in knowledge management with personal and professional development programs where each employee can set goals and use a weekly remote training time allocation to review personalized training resources.
  • Review your training process and how you deliver knowledge to new hires. The employees in charge of training probably have a lot to contribute to your knowledge management program.

Why a Strategic Approach Matters

You’ll get better results if you take a strategic approach to knowledge management. There are a few questions you should ask yourself when building this process:

  • Which goals do you want to accomplish with knowledge management?
  • What kind of role can knowledge play in your organization?
  • How do you get more out of knowledge?

Implementing a knowledge management process can be a significant change. Create a step-by-step plan with a timeline. Put some employees in charge of this transformation and investigate knowledge management software to make the process more efficient.

Look also for ways to keep improving your knowledge management process. Look for new ways of identifying knowledge, keep creating new resources, and update existing resources regularly. Listen to feedback from employees and decide on metrics you can use to assess the performance of this new system.

Final Thoughts

Too many businesses overlook knowledge management. However, the best way to preserve this valuable asset is to implement a strategic plan for creating, managing, and sharing knowledge. Knowledge management solutions will continue to become an even more essential role in the future as more businesses move away from traditional models and adopt remote work instead or work with a growing number of vendors and partners.