Inefficient knowledge transfer is not just costingorganizations money. According to a new report, it contributes to employeefrustration, negatively impacts productivity, and can put a damper on anorganization’s ability to attract top talent. Developing a strategy tofacilitate knowledge transfer and preserve organizational knowledge can supportworkers and improve the bottom line.
Study puts an actual dollar value on knowledge transfer
Panopto, a Seattle-based firm specializing in videocapture software and video content management systems, partnered with YouGov to put an actual dollar value on knowledgetransfer. They surveyed 1,001 Americans with a minimum of five years of workexperience in a wide variety of industries and job levels.
The resulting Panopto WorkplaceKnowledge and Productivity Report offers compelling statistics aboutthe cost of inefficient knowledge transfer. They discovered that on average,large businesses lose $47 million in productivity each year because knowledgeis not shared efficiently among workers. In addition, knowledge workers waste5.3 hours weekly awaiting information from their colleagues and recreatingexisting institutional knowledge—resulting in delayed projects, missedopportunities, and widespread frustration.
The study, a first of its kind, includes an interactive calculator that allows business leaders to determine the monetary impactof knowledge loss at their own particular enterprises. They may be surprised bywhat they learn.
Although he suspected knowledge transfer was a problem,especially for organizations with a lot of remote workers and offices indifferent time zones and geographic regions, Panopto CEO and co-founder EricBurns admits that he found the study results eye-opening.
“A big takeaway for us was the scale and the ubiquity of theproblem,” Burns said in an interview with LearningSolutions.
Burns discovered that knowledge transfer is not just abusiness efficiency problem—it also impacts recruitment and retention. “Welearned, for example, that knowledge workers perceive a mentor-driven,employee training and development program as a way that their organizationsvalue them,” Burns says.
The importance of knowledge sharing today
According to the Panopto study, employees need systems for effectivelysharing knowledge. Eighty-one percent of respondents report feeling frustratedwhen they can’t get the information they need to do their jobs, and 85 percentagree that preserving and sharing unique knowledge in the workplace is criticalto increasing productivity. Sixty percent of respondents find it “difficult,” “verydifficult,” or “nearly impossible” to obtain information vital to their jobfrom their colleagues. The result is lowered productivity as employees struggleto seek out the details they need to perform tasks, inadvertently replicatingwork that has already been done.
Burns believes preservingorganizational knowledge is particularly crucial when employees moveon from a company. “You need to have a way to maintain continuity in roles soyou are not reconstructing solutions to problems from scratch because peoplewho have the expertise left,” he says. He highlights Tableau, a softwareorganization with an enterprise-wide license for Panopto, as an example.
“A big part of the key knowledge at Tableau is the code baseitself,” Burns explains. “Tableau did video recordings of code reviews sofuture programmers could search for the original programmer’s intent behind aparticular code check. It’s one thing to know what the code does; it’s anotherto understand why, and what hidden landmines might be in it.”
The loss of specialized knowledge when employees departimpacts all companies, including his own. “At Panopto we’ve seen examples whereone leader has pursued a particular technology strategy or implemented aparticular business tool. At some point the person moves on, and the rationalearound using that particular tool selection is lost. So the process gets rebooted,which is pure organizational waste,” he says.
There are other sound business reasons for implementing aknowledge transfer strategy. According to Burns, knowledge sharing is aneffective method for supplementing corporate training and onboarding efforts.
“Information today gets stale quickly,” he says. “Having astrategy for capturing the knowledge of key employees is an efficient way tosupplement more structured corporate training that may not be able to keep upfast enough with the way business is changing.”
Obstacles to facilitating knowledge sharing
Although there are many benefits to actively facilitatingknowledge sharing, not all organizations do it. They cite several obstacles:
Tools. Thecompany may not have the appropriate tools to facilitate knowledge sharing, oremployees may not have the confidence to use the technology that exists. Thereality is that preserving organizational knowledge does not have to becomplicated. It can be as simple as recording a meeting or capturing a screen share.And many vendors, including Panopto, offer solutions that streamline theprocess.
Mindset.Employees don’t fancy themselves as experts or believe what they do isimportant enough to share with others. To combat this, companies must create acorporate culture mindset where informally teaching and sharing knowledge withothers is valued and expected. Transferring knowledge should be considered anormal daily practice and all employees—from the leadership level on down—shouldbe encouraged to do it.
Cost. There is a lingeringperception that preserving knowledge is expensive. This is especially true inregard to videopreservation, which many believe requires highly polished content. Thisis untrue … production values do not need to be professional grade. Mostemployees today have mobile phones and laptops with webcam capabilities, makingit easy and cost-effective for them to use video to capture and preserve theirunique knowledge.
Tips to facilitate knowledge transfer
Here are some tips for companies interested in fosteringknowledge sharing:
- Knowledge sharing should be part of a larger ecosystemthat includes an effective learning management system and solid informationarchitecture design.
- Coach content creators to keep their piecesshort and simple.
- Encourage employees, especially those who are shyabout sharing their knowledge, to gain confidence by collaboratively co-authoringcontent.
- Prevent the system from becoming a disorganizeddumping ground by creating storage repositories that are intuitive andsearchable.
- Designate an individual or a team to act asstewards of specific content repositories.
- To encourage the practice of knowledge transferacross the organization, recognize and reward employees who do it effectively.
In conclusion
New research indicates that an effective knowledge sharing programcan help improve productivity, reduce employee frustration, preserveorganizational knowledge, and improve the bottom line. In today’s competitivebusiness climate, it behooves companies of all sizes to develop a strategy tofacilitate knowledge transfer.
