A recent study found that companies promoting collaborative working were 5 times more likely to be high performing.
Sharing knowledge in the workplace forms a key part of this. This is because it gives your staff a voice, which according to Acas, is essential for improving productivity.
To achieve this growth, you’ll need to know the best knowledge sharing techniques. In this blog post, we discuss five of these, which you can introduce to your organisation straight away.
Reduce the barriers to communication
Communication is at the heart of every organisation. Including yours, I bet!
Unfortunately for some, this is for the wrong reasons. It’s shocking to see that poorly executed strategies are costing UK businesses £2.7 billion every year (according to Unum).
A key part of this is remote working, with 50% of UK workforce expected to work remotely by 2020.
Although this can be beneficial for organisations, sharing knowledge with team members based in multiple locations can be challenging.
Emailing is OK, but key information gets lost between the cracks. Video/teleconferencing can be intimidating for some people, so they find it difficult to get their point across.
Instead, you should use cloud collaboration software to bridge this gap. Using features such as blogs and forums, your colleagues can share their wisdom in one location.
Also, because the software is accessible anytime, anywhere, your remote workers don’t need to miss out on any important information that’s been shared.
Encourage cross-department collaboration
A key element of knowledge sharing in organisations often missing is getting another perspective.
No, I’m not talking about your external partners, (although this might be useful in some circumstances.) You need to be looking much closer to home – at other departments in your organisation.
You’re probably thinking this could lead to a culture clash.
But in reality, your colleagues will be resolving their own problems within their departments every day. What if they were overcoming the issues you’re facing? Wouldn’t it be great to know about it?
That’s not all. If you’re interested in your own personal development, then you’ll be pleased to know understanding other perspectives is a key leadership skill.
Improve employee engagement
More often than not, sharing knowledge in the workplace occurs during stuffy office meetings.
This is strange, as most people know how unhelpful they are! Also, with the average British person having an attention span of 14 minutes, it’s going to be hard to get anything really valuable from this time.
There’s no doubt meetings are contributing to the lack of engagement in the workplace. It’s shocking only 13% of employees working for an organisation around the world are engaged with the work they’re doing.
There are ways to reverse this trend. Have an open mind to new ideas, whether they’re good or bad. Even just a small bit of recognition will increase engagement and give them the motivation to share more of their ideas with you and your wider organisation.
The added benefits of increased employee engagement are:
- Increased productivity – It’s no surprise that happier employees are more productive.
- Better retention of staff – When people quit or retire, 80-90% of the knowledge they possess goes with them. Retaining your staff prevents this.
- Closer collaboration – People are more willing to work together to achieve common goals.
- More revenue – A study by AON has found that companies with high engagement levels reported 23% better revenue than their counterparts.
Allow time for it
Now you’re probably thinking this is easier said than done.
If so, you’re right. You and your colleagues already have packed work days and can’t imagine being able to fit much else, (let alone knowledge sharing!) into an already packed schedule.
You’re not alone. According to research from employee experience experts Qualtrics, almost half of UK workers (47%) spend the majority of their time feeling overwhelmed by their workloads, while 85% say that work is causing them stress.
You already know the benefits of knowledge sharing from the opening paragraphs of this blog post. The problem is, you’re unsure how to fit it into yours and your team’s daily routine.
Don’t worry, here are some tips to help you and your team:
- Focus on time management – Are you spending too long on unimportant tasks? Try timing yourself to see just how much time they’re taking up. Could this time be better spent elsewhere?
- Organise your tasks – Try blocking out chunks of time for specific tasks to ensure they’re completed.
- Plan your day – Doing this the night before can help to increase your productivity.
- Stop procrastination – Difficult to achieve, although not impossible. Reducing this can once again give you more time to do important tasks.
Choose the right knowledge sharing platform
Encouraging knowledge sharing is one thing. But you also need to provide the right platform to make it easy for everyone to share their expertise.
You want software that is accessible anytime, anywhere. It needs to be easy to use and secure, so people within your organisation can share knowledge in confidence.
Online collaboration software is the answer. If you want to see the real benefits of using such a platform, just look at NHS England.
Kahootz is giving tens of thousands of healthcare professionals from different teams, organisations, third parties, and stakeholders an easy way to share knowledge with each other.
Using social collaboration features such as surveys and forums, combined with document management functionality, NHS England has found that having a single source of information is increasing innovation and simplifying project management throughout their organisation.
It’s no surprise the software is expected to achieve a 150% ROI over two years.
Want to find out more about how NHS England is using Kahootz to increase knowledge sharing and collaboration across their organisation? Download our guide and see for yourself what can they achieved.
