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Five Best Practices for Knowledge Sharing in Startups
Major tech companies have the money to invest in expensiveL&D solutions. However, for startups it’s often a different story. Many ofthe training and development practices found in larger tech firms are simplyoff limits to them.
That makes knowledge sharing the ideal L&D solution.Startups can now introduce learning solutions that harness cost-effective andtime-efficient knowledge-sharing models.
Let’s explore five out-of-the-box learning practices thatyour startup can put into practice right away. These practices benefit yourorganization with continual workforce development—without breaking the bank.Ultimately, they build a rich pool of job-relevant knowledge.
1. Tap into a modern mindset
Today’s startups are thriving with employees who prefer autonomouslearning experiences. This is perfectly compatible with our definition oflearning. This model is often referred to as self-regulated learning, in whichthe learner is responsible for his or her own learning and career growth, andthe learning process may not have a formal structure. We recommend tapping intoyour employees’ self-motivated interest in learning. Curate a variety ofresources for employees to refer to, so they can learn at their own pace.
How to make ithappen:
Technology: Provide an organized, searchable body ofknowledge that employees can easily access in a variety of ways (intranet, weblinks, PDFs, etc.).
Didactics: Curateand publish job-relevant resources and courses online. Ask employeesfor their feedback and gather analytics to continually improve what you offer.User feedback can come from a variety of sources, including comments on aninternal social network, ratings on the quality of a course, emails, andin-person conversations.
2. Promote in-house mentorship
You are an expert in your field and are hired for yourknowledge and expertise. Why should you let your colleagues reinvent the wheelwhen you’ve already gained the necessary knowledge first hand? Save time andresources by mentoring your colleagues on best practices, so gaining knowledgebecomes less of a hurdle for newbies to overcome.
Mentoring goes deeper than training, because mentors providetheir protégés with a repertoire of common values and goals, building afoundation for mutual trust and respect.
Don’t forget that startup employees often fulfill multiplespecialized roles. That means they must learn the ropes on a variety ofsubjects outside the scope of their main job. Formal classroom training cannotcater to all these diverse needs at once, and multiple training sessions aretoo costly and time-consuming. The solution is to identify multiple experts(go-to people) who can mentor their colleagues on the job.
How to make it happen:
Technology: Equip mentors with simple authoring andknowledge-management tools to capture their knowledge in short, tangiblecontent pieces.
Didactics: As experts, mentors know better thananyone which concepts or best practices are most useful to their colleagues.However, they may not always know the best didactic form or format forpresenting that content. Help them with key resources, including industry bestpractices, on how to start creating training content. Provide them withexamples, brand and graphics guidelines, templates, and direction on how toshare their finalized content.
3. Facilitate peer-to-peer learning
Like mentoring, peer-to-peer social learning doesn’t happenin the classroom but on the job. From everyday job-related queries to in-depthanalyses, most workplace challenges can be solved by enablingemployees to learn from each other and carve out a path together.
If you want to be seen as an expert in your field, you haveto be vocal about your professional expertise. You must demonstrate it in a waythat benefits your colleagues and enhances their expertise too. If your skillsand knowledge can aid your colleagues and team, your presence is surely valued.This establishes your reputation as an authority.
How to make ithappen:
Technology: Provide easy-to-use, collaborativeknowledge-sharing tools that allow employees to co-author, curate, and shareknowledge. Choose tools with built-in feedback channels, so authors cancontinually improve the quality of their content.
Didactics: Develop a central hub where users can findand share knowledge on how to create and share content. Make it as appealingand easy to use as possible, whether it’s a wiki, an intranet page, or a WordPresssite.
4. Make curation and knowledge sharing a habit
Any insight or resource that has helped you on the job willlikely help others too. Nothing deepens your own knowledge more effectivelythan sharing it. The key is to “curate” or carefully select and arrange theknowledge you share. This is crucial for efficient training as it saves youfrom having to create all-new content from scratch.
Content curation involves finding, grouping, organizing,and sharing the best content on a specific subject or domain. By curatingand sharing the most relevant, thought-provoking content, you establishyourself as an authority or thought leader in your area of expertise.
Learners (your colleagues) crave handpicked, curatedcontent, because they know that curators are experts in their fields and theyvalue the content these experts share
How to make it happen:
Technology: Give employees the tools to curateknowledge on their own.
Didactics: “Teach them how to fish,” as the oldsaying goes. When it comes to knowledge-sharing,that means teach them how to curate meaningfully. For example, selecting linksand resources based on clear criteria and putting their own spin on the chosenlinks enriches the quality of the content. By putting links into context, theyshare essential, real-life knowledge that benefits their colleagues.
5. Walk your talk
Show employees that you mean this and create some earlysuccesses. Start creating and publishing content yourself and try to involvesome of your company’s leadership in your first initiatives.
How to make it happen:
Technology: Use a software-as-a-service-basedauthoring tool, so you can collaborate with your company’s busy leaders tocreate the first pieces of content or courses. Take the lead to drive theseleadership initiatives and create practical examples that have an impact. Thiswill inspire your workforce to follow the same route.
Didactics: Ask your senior leadership to create a content base to getnew employees up to speed. Then, curate the best content to create a simplecourse, if you like. In our experience, senior leadership is always short ontime, so create courses on topics you know are close to their hearts and askthem to review and edit.
