The Impact of Knowledge Management on Employee Productivity

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Knowledge management is one of the secret ingredients that lead to improved workplace productivity, greater employee engagement, and a more cohesive and functioning team. It can be easily overlooked as company management becomes complacent with their internal knowledge management. This oversight can lead to several problems, including lower productivity and a slower workflow altogether.

So, next time you’re filling in an employee productivity tracker template and notice that the work efficiency of some teams has subsided, consider that the quality of the company’s knowledge management may have impacted productivity in one of the following ways.

1. Smoother Workflow

One aspect of knowledge management for employees is ensuring they possess the necessary tools and know how to use them to accomplish their tasks. If their knowledge is insufficient and they don’t know how to use the tools effectively, they will encounter many obstacles that significantly slow down the output of results.

When you democratise your people data accordingly and provide employees with the necessary knowledge to get the job done, they waste less time consulting workplace guidelines and documents or asking peers. To ensure employees have all the knowledge they need to fulfil their professional responsibilities, perform regular check-ups to see how accessible necessary information is.

2. Employee Career Training

Employees should be doing more than working. Ideally, they should also learn something new every day to support their career growth. You can consider professional training sessions or mentoring programs an active approach to knowledge management. Companies motivate their employees to sign up for educational programs to hone their skills and learn new ones; meanwhile, the company can track attendance online to monitor their progress.

Employee training programs are a great way to improve knowledge management, as it keeps the team’s professional skills and knowledge up to date. For example, by incorporating professional training into your knowledge management system, you can help your programmers learn a new language that will allow them to take on new projects. Your customer service team, on the other hand, may learn new, more effective communication methods that will help them deal with problems much quicker.

The knowledge of your employees is the knowledge of the entire team. By motivating and helping employees grow in their profession, you will subsequently boost the productivity of the company.

3. Self-Reliant Workforce

Companies are a team effort. The efficiency of the entire company depends on how effectively each and every employee works and how effective they are at handling their responsibilities. This reality is why culture specialists, or human resources, put so much effort into team building.

Just because a company functions as a large team, however, does not mean that employees should not be self-reliant. In fact, employees depending too much on their peers can, in some cases, slow down the workflow. For example, if an employee doesn’t know how to handle a certain task, they may constantly ask their coworkers for assistance. This reliance not only slows down the productivity of one employee but also of those helping them.

The key to self-reliant workers who are experts in their subject matter is proper knowledge management. If workers possess the necessary knowledge to complete their tasks, they will not rely as much on their coworkers and will not waste as much time asking for help.

4. Less Cluttered Documents and Tools

Nothing slows down workplace efficiency more than disorganisation and clutter. Modern companies use cloud storage for their documents, employee manuals, data, and other types of crucial information. Companies need to ensure that all employees have easy access to the cloud and all the assets stored on it.

But what happens when a large number of people use a company-wide resource? Empty folders, duplicated files, and misplaced documents. Sifting through messy cloud storage in search of a very specific document can take a significant amount of time which in turn slows down the efficiency with which employees accomplish tasks.

Keep your shared cloud storage strictly organised and ensure that the organisational rules are followed by all workers. Keep storage devices and the folders within them labelled accordingly so employees can seamlessly navigate the cloud. It’s also important to actively organise the cloud storage every month or quarter to tackle the problem of information clutter before it gets out of hand.

To Conclude

Knowledge management can and will have a huge impact on employee productivity. Leverage knowledge management to improve productivity and keep it at a maximum capacity by equipping all workers with the tools and information they need to get the job done.

Further utilisation of employee training programs can keep their knowledge on par with the latest developments in their profession and help them learn new skills to bolster their career growth. This approach will improve the effectiveness with which workers accomplish tasks in the workplace and help them with professional development for their future careers.

This article was guest written by Sara Novicic.