Organizational Knowledge Management: 9 Steps To Implement an Effective System
A robust knowledge management system can reduce the time employees spend searching for information by up to 35% and boost organization-wide productivity by 20% to 25%.
Organizational knowledge refers to all the knowledge within an organization that provides business value and continuity, regardless of industry or company size.
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of companies providing remote workforces with easy, timely access to relevant job- and organization-related information. This remains important post-pandemic and requires a solid organizational knowledge management system. In fact, 92.2% of business owners believe such a system influences employee learning and organizational growth, while 66.2% say it helps facilitate teamwork.
This article will explain the various types of organizational knowledge and provides a step-by-step guide to managing this within the business.
Contents
What is organizational knowledge?
What is organizational knowledge management?
Why organizational knowledge management is important
7 types of organizational knowledge
9-step guide for HR on managing organizational knowledge
2 organizational knowledge management examples
What is organizational knowledge?
Organizational knowledge consists of the collective skills, data, intellectual property (IP), and overall experiences an organization has. It can include product and customer knowledge, IP and confidential information, employee handbooks, and standard operating procedure (SOP) manuals, among others.
Organizational knowledge can drive business success and enable efficient operations. Additionally, it can facilitate faster responses to market changes and foster a culture of continuous learning.
Here are four key elements of organizational knowledge:
- Skills: The specific employee competencies employees that contribute to their job performance. They include both technical and ‘soft’ skills, such as communication and teamwork.
- Experiences: The practical, job-specific knowledge employees gain through their day-to-day work, which helps drive decision-making and process improvements. This knowledge often leads to insights that formal training typically doesn’t provide.
- Data: The quantitative and qualitative information organizations collect and analyze to help make informed, data-driven business decisions.
- Intellectual property: Patents, trademarks, copyrights, and confidential and proprietary processes that give organizations a competitive edge. IP management is crucial for maintaining market position and regulatory compliance.
What is organizational knowledge management?
Organizational knowledge management is the formal process of identifying, documenting, retaining, and applying knowledge to ensure business continuity and improve organizational performance.
It usually entails the following:
- Highlighting knowledge: Identifying areas where relevant and valuable knowledge exists, whether among individuals, teams, or processes.
- Capturing knowledge: Documenting relevant, accurate knowledge to make it available to others.
- Storage and organization: Using accessible systems, such as databases or cloud platforms, to make information accessible, easy to retrieve, and secure.
- Applying knowledge: Transforming data and information into actionable insights that are easily accessible and understandable to users.
Learn how to build better HR processes
Organizational knowledge management is also essential for HR to get right. You’ll need to develop HR policies and processes to support the organization and its employees.
In AIHR’s HR Generalist Certificate Program, you will learn best practices when implementing HR processes and helping your business develop better structures.
This online, self-paced Certificate Program will also teach you about strategies you can use to become an effective communicator, which is important for knowledge sharing.
Why organizational knowledge management is important
Properly developed organizational knowledge management can benefit a company’s processes, products, services, and overall operation. It also allows employees to quickly and easily access best practices, company policies, and other key information that impacts their work.
Other benefits of effective organizational knowledge management include:
- Greater competitive advantage: Knowledge management helps drive innovation, enhance customer value, and enable responses to market changes.
- Maximized knowledge retention: Regularly documenting and updating knowledge facilitates business continuity by preventing critical knowledge loss in the event of employee turnover.
- Improved decision-making: Maintaining relevant and accessible knowledge enhances the employees’ decision-making capabilities, leading to positive business outcomes. It also minimizes the risk of duplicate work and unnecessary time spent searching for information.
- Enhanced collaboration and innovation: Knowledge sharing helps create a culture of ongoing learning, development, and improvement. It enhances employees’ skills and knowledge and boosts organizational growth.
- Increased customer satisfaction: Documenting important customer processes and interactions helps companies better manage customer needs and expectations, ultimately leading to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.
- Employee productivity: Easy access to knowledge aids productivity and efficiency, as it minimizes any unnecessary time and effort spent searching for information. This also prevents employee frustration, increasing job satisfaction.
Organizational knowledge is part of the fiber of any organization. It often sets organizations apart, as it is impossible to replicate and imitate. So, this asset should be managed and protected with as much rigor as other organizational assets.
7 types of organizational knowledgeত
Here are the seven main types of organizational knowledge:
- Tacit knowledge: Undocumented knowledge consisting of employees’ skills, abilities, ideas, and experiences. Employees can be unaware of the extent of their tacit knowledge and its potential value to others.
- Implicit knowledge: This type of knowledge is commonly understood and applied but not formally expressed, such as best practices or unspoken norms.
- Explicit knowledge: Easily articulated, documented, and shared knowledge, such as manuals, procedures, databases, and reports.
- Declarative knowledge: Factual knowledge about different subjects, including theories and concepts.
- Procedural knowledge: Knowledge related to processes and how to perform specific, step-by-step tasks.
- Individual knowledge: Knowledge individual employees possess, which they gain through personal experiences and the application of their skills.
- Collective knowledge: Knowledge that emerges from group interactions, collaboration, and shared experiences within and among teams.
HR tip
Facilitate cross-training initiatives: Promote and facilitate cross-training to help employees share their expertise and develop a deeper understanding of different organizational functions. This can include team-building exercises, focus groups, or knowledge-mapping meetings.
9-step guide for HR on managing organizational knowledge
Before diving into organizational knowledge management, there are two aspects to consider.
First, according to AIHR Subject Matter Expert Dr Marna van der Merwe, knowledge management should form part of the offboarding process. A practical tool, like a knowledge transfer document, can ensure appropriate knowledge transfer at this stage.
Secondly, If the organization is knowledge-based or has additional complexities (e.g., multiple geographies or a highly dispersed workforce), AI can be useful in facilitating knowledge sharing and management.
Here is a detailed guide and actionable steps you can take to implement and manage an effective organizational knowledge management process for your company: 
Step 1: Determine the scope and extent of your company’s existing knowledge
Pinpoint the most valuable and relevant knowledge for organizational success and determine where it resides—whether among individuals or teams, in systems, or a combination of these. A skills matrix or knowledge audit can help you map out where knowledge is stored and allow you to identify knowledge gaps.
You can also use knowledge mapping to visually organize knowledge points (such as in a flowchart) and make them accessible to employees, as well as a skills matrix to map out individual employee expertise.
Engaging employees in this process is critical for relevant knowledge collection, can help foster a knowledge-sharing culture, and can deter information silos. Be sure also to include employees who are experts in their field to allow their knowledge to help their co-workers build their competencies.
→ Try this: You can initiate and facilitate this process by conducting meetings with employees and gathering job knowledge-related information. You can then follow up on other areas where you’ve identified knowledge.
Step 2: Collect and document important knowledge types and aspects
Once you’ve identified and mapped out existing knowledge, document it accurately in an understandable, accessible format. For example, if documenting an HR policy, ensure that it answers any questions employees may ask and host it on a platform that all employees can access whenever they need to refer to the policy.
Another component of a company’s knowledge is unstructured knowledge, which includes HR memos, emails, employee surveys, and even job postings on social media. Agree on the best method to organize and store the information, then continue to manage these.
→ Try this: HR can support this by developing templates or guidelines for documenting and organizing knowledge. This ensures consistency and completeness in the information being captured.
Step 3: Store knowledge securely but allow authorized parties easy access
Organizational knowledge management requires storage solutions that are both secure and easily accessible to authorized parties. This could involve the use of knowledge bases, cloud storage, or knowledge management platforms.
The key to striking a balance between security and accessibility is to use an organized system that categorizes knowledge intuitively and easily for authorized users.
→ Try this: Assist management in choosing the best platform, train employees on how to use it, and communicate the importance of treating all stored information as confidential.
Step 4: Establish platforms for knowledge sharing
One key benefit of knowledge sharing is gaining insight from others’ experiences. Establish platforms for knowledge sharing, such as internal forums, technology-enabled platforms, cross-departmental project work, focus groups, and other collaborative tools.
→ Try this: Lead initiatives to promote collaboration and even develop incentives—monetary and non-monetary—for employees who contribute to knowledge sharing.
Step 5: Use knowledge to inform decision-making and guide problem-solving
Integrate knowledge into decision-making processes across the organization. One effective way to do this is to tap into data analytics tools or knowledge repositories whenever your company needs to make an important, informed decision.
→ Try this: Encourage data-driven decision-making by providing training to both leadership and employees on how to maximize knowledge application in their daily work.
Step 6: Keep knowledge as current as possible
Set up a process to evaluate the knowledge stored. Removing outdated information can also help you address the challenge of ‘information overload’, ensuring your workforce is not inundated with useless information.
→ Try this: Develop a schedule for periodic reviews of knowledge resources to ensure the content is current. You can also train employees on how to weed out unnecessary information and retain important details, especially when the company’s knowledge content undergoes substantive changes.
Step 7: Assess the quality, relevance, and impact of knowledge
Regularly assess the quality and relevance of your organization’s stored knowledge and its impact on individual, team, and business performance. Relevant knowledge could help leadership make better business decisions, but irrelevant knowledge clutters the system and makes it more difficult to find the important content.
→ Try this: Conduct surveys, user feedback sessions, and focus groups to gather insights on how different individuals and teams are using the company’s knowledge and what they think of it. You can then decide whether you should suggest or implement any changes.
Step 8: Secure and protect proprietary knowledge
In collaboration with your IT department, implement cybersecurity measures to safeguard sensitive information so that employees have access on a ‘need to know’ basis.
Some companies may even choose to have a separate department or a single source of knowledge software that focuses on overall data governance and related protocols.
→ Try this: To maintain information and data security, develop company policies and standards regarding confidentiality and data protection. Clearly communicate these standards and expectations across the organization and emphasize the importance of adhering to them.
Step 9: Promote a knowledge-centric culture throughout the workplace
Promote open communication across the entire workforce and recognize and reward knowledge sharing across the organization. This will help develop a sense of trust among employees, management, and leadership,
→ Try this: Lead the charge by creating various initiatives to highlight the importance of knowledge sharing and management. You can also provide training and facilitate knowledge-sharing exercises.
2 organizational knowledge management examples
1. IBM’s Knowledge Orchestrator
Knowledge Orchestrator was developed by IBM Chief Innovation Officer Dr Errol Brandt as a passion project after the death of a key company colleague. The unfortunate loss of a colleague also meant that critical tacit knowledge the person held was lost.
Brandt developed an enterprise knowledge management platform powered by AI that can turn raw, unstructured data into structured natural language. This platform has helped IBM to build the company’s enterprise knowledge base and contains more than 2,000 articles for employees to read.
2. Microsoft’s Viva Topics
Microsoft’s Viva Topics is a knowledge management solution that uses artificial intelligence to organize content and expertise across an organization. It automatically identifies topics within company data and creates topic pages that compile related documents, conversations, and experts.
The system helps employees to access relevant information directly within the tools they use daily, such as Microsoft Teams and SharePoint. This is also particularly helpful for new employees who need to learn a lot of information quickly.
To sum up
Regardless of industry or company size, a strong organizational knowledge management process is a key foundation of a healthy, competitive business and must be a high priority. Companies that don’t develop, maintain, or update their knowledge management risk decreased business continuity, customer satisfaction, profits, employee morale, and productivity.
Management must lead by example and encourage information sharing and retention, with HR taking a proactive role in the process. You can either help your company develop a new organizational knowledge management process or review its existing system regularly and update it as needed. This will help create a strong, strategic framework for organizational knowledge management, ultimately contributing to long-term business success.
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