Introduction to a Knowledge-Sharing Culture
There are many terms for a knowledge-sharing culture.
The knowledge market. A company culture of collective intelligence. A corporate learning culture. The transfer of learning. A culture of sharing. Talking to a chum! All sorts!
Whatever you call it, its value cannot be underestimated. In the modern environment of high staff-turnover, knowledge-sharing is now the difference between hanging on for survival and thriving.
Did you know Fortune 500 companies lose roughly $31.5 billion a year by failing to share knowledge?
This is because knowledge can fall through the cracks when staff move on. The reverse happens when new staff join. They have to relearn everything before they can thrive, meaning it’s harder for them to succeed, in turn, making it harder for your business to succeed.
Creating a Knowledge-Sharing Culture
Now we know what it is, and its value, how do you build a knowledge-sharing culture of your own? Here are seven ways:
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Encourage team Bonding
Team bonding is pivotal to social learning. Without a sense of community, the motivation to actually share is teeny. It just feels too awkward!A study by the Kenexa Research Institute found that 50% of the positive changes in communication patterns within the workplace can be credited to social interaction outside of the workplace.
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Employ Virtual Rewards for Sharing Incentives
Sometimes we need external motivators in order to play nice! Like when coffee shops offer you a free coffee with a stamp card if you return. This is what we call being extrinsically motivated.Admins can reward knowledge-sharers by employing gamification in the form of experience points (XPs), leaderboards, and virtual badges.
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Offer Real-Life Rewards
Some colleagues will be more incentivised to share their knowledge with the dangling hope of real-life rewards, rather than virtual accolades. Yes, our wages are a great extrinsic motivator for working, but like a curious cat, extrinsically motivated workers are always looking for that extra bit of cream on top…Real-life rewards can be anything from free lunches with the management, to vouchers for online retailers, to discounts for local shops. A big motivator for chocolate lovers! On The Academy LMS you can use the Reward Centre to offer real-life incentives in exchange for points or badges!
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Let Employees Know the Value of Their Knowledge
Sometimes it’s the case that an employee simply doesn’t feel that their knowledge is worth sharing. This is why some employees need to be encouraged to share their wealth of knowledge with everyone in the team.It’s important to continually reinforce the message that all knowledge is worth sharing!
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Identify and Capitalize on your Knowledge Experts
In every organisation, there’s a cluster of people who stick out as brainboxes. We all know the ones! We can’t put our finger on why, but there’s a certain information overload about them that makes them ooze with intellect.Capitalise on these brainy individuals by giving them a platform to share their wealth of knowledge! If they need an incentive, then check back to two and three!
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Include Them as Job Requirements
A lot of employees will not even think about knowledge sharing as it’s not an obligation. Plus, most of us are so busy that we simply don’t make the time! If we make knowledge sharing a job requirement from the offset, then it’ll soon be embedded into the psyche. Before long, knowledge sharing will become as natural as liking Taylor Swift!If that’s too much for you then at the very least include it in your onboarding process.
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Personalise Your Training Programme
By tailoring your training programme, you’ll be making your content more accessible, more visually appealing and more engaging to the learner. In turn, this will be a place they’ll want to return to and share knowledge again and again.With our learning solutions, you can add your logo, customise your colour palette, and customise your banners as well as a host of other customisable features. The point is, it’s the little touches like this that make your platform all the more engaging. Making your team feel like a part of a community that want to share is key.