Decrease in Knowledge Shelf-life Makes Performance Support Mandatory

Ifyou’ve ever had the displeasure of pouring yourself a glass of sour milk orbiting into a piece of stale bread, then you already know the importance ofunderstanding shelf-lives.

Whatwas once fresh and nutritious, quickly becomes unusable.

Knowledge is decaying faster than ever

Theshelf-life of knowledge—the time between when knowledge is acquired to when itbecomes obsolete—is shrinking rapidly. At the same time, the volume ofknowledge required to do our jobs well is growing exponentially.

Thismeans we need to be constantly learning—discarding out-of-date knowledge, andreplacing it with new knowledge in an almost seamless and continuous process. Which,unsurprisingly, poses a big challenge to HR and L&D departments.

Asexplained by Cathy Gonzalez in her 2004 paper “The Role of Blended Learning in the World of Technology,”

The amount of knowledge in the world hasdoubled in the past 10 years and is [now] doubling every 18 months…To combatthe shrinking half-life of knowledge, organizations have been forced to developnew methods of deploying instruction.

Thechallenge of this situation is compounded by the fact that people are nowstaying in their jobs for significantly shorter time periods. According to aFuture Workplace survey, 91 percent of Millennials expect to stayin their current roles for less than three years.

That’sa problem, because up to 90 percent of the knowledge in any organization islocked inside the heads of its workforce, and when employees leave, they takevaluable information, resources, skills, and experiences with them.

Howcan organizations take on the task of maintaining a flow of up-to-dateinformation that’s both relevant and helpful to their evolving workforce?

And,is it possible to capture and proliferate the kind of on-the-job, tacitknowledge possessed by your teams and pass it on to new team members, even asyour team members and dynamics change?

Thankfully,the answer is a resounding yes. Here are some ideas that will help you getthere, by supporting performance at the five moments of need.

Leverage technology

Givenhow quickly knowledge regenerates, organizations must turn their attention tomeans of training and support that make it easy to capture, update, and changeinformation before it becomes obsolete (and before someone leaves and takes itall with them).

Don’tsimply make do with limited, outdated technology solutions, just because it’s historicallywhat the business has been using.

Instead,search for and leverage new, online learning and performance support solutionsthat are:

• Fluid—to keep up with the ever-growing influx of info, seek out technology that makes it easy and fast to capture information, edit it, update it, and delete it altogether, as it grows, changes, and becomes obsolete.
• Accessible—platforms that work on mobile devices give learners the power to access information wherever and whenever they need it, meaning they always have the most up-to-date knowledge at their fingertips.
• Trackable—not only can you track the progress each staff member has made (what training they’ve undertaken, how much they’ve understood), but you can also track the success of your training. If it’s not quite hitting the mark, then simply edit it and re-publish.

You’llbe surprised at how easy it is to get started, once you’ve found the right toolthat suits your needs.

Collaboration

Onceyou’ve got your learning and performance support technology in place, it’s timeto start filling it with useful content.

Thisresponsibility doesn’t have to be placed all on one person, or one department’sshoulders. It can easily be spread.

Justthink of all the subject matter experts you’ve got working throughout eachdepartment—people at the coal face of the business, where the work is actuallyhappening, who have a lot of key insight to offer. Why not invite them tocollaborate in the content creation? Why not make it easy for other employeesto identify and contact them for help?

Notonly does this help lighten the load and expand the knowledge base to thosemost qualified to share, but it also has the side effect of empowering youremployees, and making them feel valued for their knowledge and abilities.

Settingup “training-creation task-forces” within teams, is also an excellent way tocapture the tacit knowledge they’ve acquired and preserve it in the inevitableevent that team members leave. Teams can validate and discuss the training andthe support content, challenging and expanding upon one another’scontributions.

Curation

The sheervolume of knowledge needed for each department to run effectively can beoverwhelming. To capture it, you’ll need to develop superior curation skills.

Goodcuration skills can be a lifesaver, or at very least a big time-saver. This iswhen working smarter, not harder, really comes into play.

Startby identifying hot topics that need addressing in your organization. Toidentify these, speak with your staff, team leaders, and managers, as they’reyour direct line into their respective roles and departments, and can help youunderstand which topics to give priority.

Then,look out for sources of valuable content from third parties, i.e. Forbes, FastCompany, Harvard Business Review, BBC News website, and so on. There is awealth of wonderful content (be it text, infographics, or video) available forcuration—you just need to know where to look.

Next,pull together the appropriate resources: mixing text, images, and video—inorder to create engaging bursts of learning and readily accessible support. Asyou do, always maintain the mindset of the “end-user”—how and where are theylikely to consume your content? In what context will they be accessing thisinformation? Use these questions to guide your curation and appeal to theirpreferences.

Then,personalize and humanize what you’ve created as much as possible—addingpersonal messages, advice, and quick video recordings (shot on a smartphone) toexplain “why,” “what,” and “how,” it relates to them.

Finally,assign one topic to a group. This is not the point to sign off. Instead,actively check their feedback and use it to quickly create other modules andimprove the curation efforts you’ve already undertaken.

Ultimately,the best way to start curating is by just knuckling down and doing it. Curatetoday and get feedback, then curate a better topic tomorrow and encouragecontribution from across your business.

Making knowledge current and accessible is a priority

Byleveraging technology, encouraging collaboration, and rethinking the wayinformation is curated, validated, and shared, organizations have theopportunity to maintain a current and expansive body of knowledge, withoutplacing the onus squarely on the shoulders of one department.

Thefuture moves fast—are you ready to move with it?

Editor’snote

The Performance Support Symposium offers you an opportunity to explore the strategies,practices, and technologies being used to deliver 21^st-century performance support. As the speed ofbusiness continues to accelerate, the ability to deliver information to workersquickly, when and where they need it, is becoming critical. This business need,combined with the increasing number of technologies that enable support to beembedded directly into the flow of work, has fueled a renewed interest inperformance support in the workplace.

Join the conversation June 10 – 12 in Austin, TX,and discover how you can enhance your training efforts by putting informationin the workflow!