ONE of the most overlooked potential in an organization are the lessons learned by their departments in using common tools and processes within the organization. To capitalize on this, most organizations share best practices to improve the performance of one unit of the organization by learning from the processes and experiences of other departments. When organizations document best practices and make them readily available to all, it increases employees’ overall productivity and efficiency.
An example would be managing an event. You cannot always rely on one department to manage all the events of the organization. But it would be to everyone’s advantage if that department would share their best practices so others can learn how to manage an event. They can create templates and checklists to ensure an event goes as planned, even if they are not there.
To share best practices, there are several things you need to consider in managing organizational knowledge. Human resources, in partnership with the Information Technology group, can create a plan to strategically harness the best practices from different departments from the organization into a knowledge base. They need to efficiently curate the database using a knowledge management tool so that anyone from the organization can easily access their needed information. Employees should also be able to contribute meaningfully to the knowledge base by posting what worked well for them.
However, not all people will share their best practices if they are stacked rank against their colleagues. They would hoard information because their best practices give them an added advantage which they would lose if they shared them. This is the same case as when a department in an organization is the process owner, so they would keep their best practices a secret lest they be replaced by better employees. To maximize how best practices can be best used by the organization, you must address these concerns.
Sharing best practices can be contained in the organization’s intranet. Whether you are using hashtags, sections, or a dedicated area for people to post, it needs to be accessible to everyone in the organization. You can also invest in knowledge-sharing tools so new information is curated efficiently and retrieved easily. If you do not have these tools, you can opt to use social media where you can create closed group accounts for your employees to share information or their own work hacks.
One of the clear benefits of sharing best practices is the availability of information on a given process or tool. Common questions can help the learning and development group identify learning gaps and craft learning solutions to address those concerns. A question-and-answer format can help in collating information and making them all available under one category.
Having a knowledge base also enhances creativity and provides multiple perspectives on an issue. It then increases collaboration from different departments and reduces the silo mentality which is common in most organizations. Making a process or tool available to the scrutiny of the entire organization makes it easier for subject matter experts from different fields to contribute their wisdom and experience. Gaining different perspectives from best practices will also help organizations make sound decisions. Management can then implement the best solution while keeping an eye on identified risks.
This leads us to a significant benefit of shared best practices, which is the development of a learning culture. When departments share best practices, you allow people to use organizational knowledge to address current and emerging issues which can then be used by new and tenured employees alike. You can encourage this by providing incentives for employees who contribute significantly to the knowledge base and whose best practices are adopted by other departments. You spark innovation when you encourage and incentivize people who significantly impact the bottom line.
An offshoot of a learning culture is a supportive corporate community that readily adapts to new and emerging issues. By encouraging people to look for better ways of doing things and encouraging them to share it, you create an environment where people look out for one another. You encourage the creation of communities of practice where people naturally gravitate toward those with similar work so they can sharpen each other’s tools and work together when one needs the other.
And when new employees join your organization, they have ready and accessible information to get their work faster and easier. A well-maintained knowledge base helps new members avoid common pitfalls in their line of work. At the same time, it provides them the knowledge of what has worked, and provides insight into what they can contribute to improve the processes using their own experiences. From there, your knowledge base can only get better.
And when employees leave, the information they have contributed is retained in the knowledge base. Instead of the team suffering from brain drain, institutional knowledge is kept intact so future members have access to them instead of learning everything from scratch or repeating the same mistakes. You will not always have your employees with you, but with good foresight and planning you can safeguard organizational information for new members.
Sharing best practices contained in a knowledge base maximizes your employee’s tools and processes, and increases their productivity and engagement. It also future-proofs your organization by providing a venue where teams can discuss how they can do their work better, smarter and faster. By making it available to everyone, you are, in a way, saying that everyone has their own expertise, but the best solution is the one that benefits everyone.
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