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Abstract
Knowledge sharing is seen as one of the important elements of talent development and retaining. This paper includes a brief description of the development program aimed at training employees to share knowledge effectively to contribute to the development of the organization. The program lasts for 10 weeks and involves lectures, discussions, and workshops. The program is also consistent with the succession planning and management as it enables HR professionals to assess employees creativity and commitment to achieving organizational goals.
Introduction
Companies performance often depends on their abilities to innovate and retain talent. Effective knowledge sharing is a key component of this process (Chen & Cheng, 2012). However, employees tend to see knowledge sharing as a way to lose their competitive advantage and fail to achieve their career goals (for example, promotion). Wang and Wang (2012) also note that some individuals have insufficient skills and ability to express their tacit knowledge properly. Another problem is associated with the abundance of information as employees may often share rather irrelevant information (Wang, Wang & Liang, 2014). Therefore, it is critical to developing employees skills in knowledge sharing that will translate into a higher performance of the entire organization.
Skills, Competencies, and Behaviors to Develop
The development program will include lectures, discussions, presentations, and workshops, as well as team-building activities. The program will include two assessments that will take place in the middle and at the end of the program. The effectiveness of the program will be evaluated after the completion of the sessions with the focus on the replenishment of the organizations knowledge base and ways knowledge is shared. When developing effective knowledge sharing practices, it is critical to focus on the development of proper relationships between employees. Trust and willingness to collaborate are central to effective knowledge sharing within an organization (Chen & Cheng, 2012). These characteristics should be achieved, and the corresponding behavior should be developed. Hence, team-building activities will be a part of the development program.
Apart from trusting relationships, employees should have particular skills and competencies to share knowledge effectively. Thus, employees should be able to express explicit and tacit knowledge. They should also share it effectively and learn from shared knowledge. Reports completion can be one of the tools to facilitate the process so employees should understand how to complete these forms. The reports will be standardized ways to share knowledge, which will help employees share information and learn from it. To train employees ability to learn from new information shared, employees will discuss their ideas and present particular innovations.
Furthermore, employees should also be able to turn the tacit knowledge into the explicit one. The training sessions will address the development of competencies associated with generating ideas that could be beneficial for the organizations performance. Making notes, creating graphs, and tables can help employees in this endeavor. Distilling information is essential in this process. The employees will brainstorm to come up with a checklist of characteristics of valuable knowledge as compared to irrelevant data. This checklist will be later available alongside with the reports and other guiding documents.
The delivery of knowledge should also be effective, which means that employees should know how to use ICT technology available in the organization. There should be a particular framework for sharing. Completion of reports, placing data in the database, and discussion during regular meetings should be steps of knowledge sharing. Employees should know the peculiarities of the database and ways to add information. Importantly, the software is constantly updating, which means that training can be rather regular.
Different Levels of Development
The development of skills concerning knowledge sharing is essential for all levels as knowledge sharing occurs at different organizational levels. Importantly, supervisors and managers should be able to share knowledge with their subordinates, which is easy to manage within the transformational leadership paradigm (Mittal & Dhar, 2015). At that, the training does not have to differ as knowledge sharing abilities are quite similar to all employees. The major difference can be related to the nature of knowledge employees are likely to share. For instance, leaders will be able to share some leadership skills while some employees will share specific skills necessary to complete particular tasks.
Timeline
The development program can take up to two months. It is necessary to note that the program should embrace all the employees of the organization. At that, training sessions should be held with cross-functional teams that include employees of different levels (subordinates, supervisors, and executives). This approach will be instrumental in developing the necessary atmosphere in the working place. It is critical to have two assessment sessions and have a session where the gaps revealed can be addressed. Thus, the training sessions will be carried out twice a week.
After the completion of the development program, discussion of new ideas, reports with new information, ways to learn from such novelties should regularly be held (for example, monthly in each department and quarterly across the entire organization). The training program can later be transformed into a policy for novice employees to cover with their supervisors guidance. As has been mentioned above, employees will receive updates on the use of the corresponding software. These updates can be discussed if necessary.
Succession Plan
It is necessary to note that this development program can be consistent with any succession plan and management. Succession planning and management can be referred to as an effort ensuring continued effective performance of the organization or its part through the development, replacement, and strategic application of key people (W. Rothwell, 2010, p. 6). J. Rothwell (2010) states that efficient succession planning includes clarifying the work and people necessary to achieve the organizational goals, managing performance, evaluating employees for promotion, closing developmental gaps and transferring the knowledge (p. 51-52).
The development program in question can help maintain effective succession management as it addresses some of its components. Importantly, the program contributes to the transfer of knowledge as employees are taught and encouraged to share knowledge to meet organizational aims. The inclusive nature of the program (all employees are involved) makes the knowledge sharing cross-level. Leaders share their leadership skills that may be of use for employees who will be promoted. Finally, the program can help assess employees potential and creative (as well as innovative) capacity. Sharing new ideas after the completion of the program and during training sessions reveals employees creativity and commitment to contributing to the development of the organization.
References
Chen, W., & Cheng, H. (2012). Factors affecting the knowledge sharing attitude of hotel service personnel. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 31(2), 468-476.
Mittal, S., & Dhar, R. (2015). Transformational leadership and employee creativity. Management Decision, 53(5), 894-910.
Rothwell, W. (2010). Effective succession planning: Ensuring leadership continuity and building talent from within. New York, NY: AMACOM.
Rothwell, J. (2010). The future of succession planning. T+D, 64(9), 50-54.
Wang, Z., & Wang, N. (2012). Knowledge sharing, innovation and firm performance. Expert Systems with Applications, 39(1), 8899-8908.
Wang, Z., Wang, N., & Liang, H. (2014). Knowledge sharing, intellectual capital and firm performance. Management Decision, 52(2), 230-258.
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