What is knowledge sharing?
Knowledge sharing from my perspective is when you come back from an external learning event such as a training seminar, conference, webinar, workshop, etc… and your share what you have learned with your peers, colleagues and maybe even your manager. The reason why you share this information is because you have determined that the information you have learned is relevant, important to you and/or your peers and it may help you, your team, your business unit and ultimately your organization develop new ideas, concepts or create innovative discussion. It should also create “a light bulb moment”.
Why is this so important?
These learning events create employee engagement and for the most part the employee is intrinsically motivated to go learn because they have had a say in attending the learning activity or have had some buy-in (what’s in it for me) from the inception of the idea. This creates a powerful learning scenario for the employee and since the company is already paying for it, why not get some ROI and use this opportunity to help develop other employees at the same time. If your company is not doing this now … get started because there is no better way to create an innovative training program that is self-guided by the employee.
Why it works so well…
1) Empowered Contributor, It allows the employee to contribute to the team and it makes them feel empowered because they are adding value and are given the ability to manage theirown assigned work. This create an ultimate learning environment.
2) The Peer Buy-In Factor. Work peers get to learn something relevant from another peer that will enhance their skill set = The buy-in factor from peer to peer learning or information sharing is immense! The employee knows their peer and is more willing to learn from someone at the same level as them because they can relate to one another. It also allows for great discussion and healthy debate, brainstorming and perhaps developing new innovative ideas
3) Skill Development, Allows you to further develop your employee skills by creating a forum where they can practice developing presentation materials such as a written Word document (technical writing) or doing a PowerPoint presentation (communication skills) this leads to employee performance development
Added benefit, As the new Subject Matter Expert you can trim down the information you have learned to make it more relevant to your existing culture. (you can make it fun, this is your blank canvas to be creative) and by doing this you are dealing with less performance barriers and making your forum engaging.
4) The Organization Wins, The organization is also reaping the benefits from an intangible perspective, because employees are motivated and engaged and WANT to learn versus HAVING to learn. (Think of how fun it is to do Regulatory Compliance courses like HIPAA?, Fire Safety, Fraud Waste and Abuse… see my point?)
The organization benefits from having a more succinct collaborative culture that focuses on eleminiating business silos, and team dysfunctions because they are all in this together as willing participants. The ROI from spending $$$ for these seminars can been seen as a long term investment instead of a 1 time event, and metric can be calculated and presented as part of the learning business process to demonstrate how learning is being disseminated across the organization.
5) Managers Reap the Benefits, From a manager’s perspective this type of activity can be logged in the employees personal file as a small project and /or can be added to an employees development plan and can be measured (tangible metric) Yes! you can report back on this learning event and showcase how you are developing your employees without lifting a finger (sort of speak)…You are now driving employee performance. A leader who is empowering their employees to work together to achieve common goals as your align yourself with the company’s Mission, Vision, Values.
If you want to learn more please contact me Corrie Woolcott cwoolcott@manageyourperformance.com and I would love to share with you a sample business case. How, I was able to help a client through this knowledge sharing process.
